第一章 · FIRST LOVE

. FIRST LOVE

(1860)

The guests had long since departed. The clock struck half-past twelve.

There remained in the room only the host, Sergyéi Nikoláevitch, and

Vladímir Petróvitch.

The host rang and ordered the remains of the supper to be removed.--“So

then, the matter is settled,”--he said, ensconcing himself more deeply

in his arm-chair, and lighting a cigar:--“each of us is to narrate the

history of his first love. ’Tis your turn, Sergyéi Nikoláevitch.”

Sergyéi Nikoláevitch, a rather corpulent man, with a plump, fair-skinned

face, first looked at the host, then raised his eyes to the ceiling.--“I

had no first love,”--he began at last:--“I began straight off with the

second.”

“How was that?”

“Very simply. I was eighteen years of age when, for the first time, I

dangled after a very charming young lady; but I courted her as though it

were no new thing to me: exactly as I courted others afterward. To tell

the truth, I fell in love, for the first and last time, at the age of

six, with my nurse;--but that is a very long time ago. The details of

our relations have been erased from my memory; but even if I remembered

them, who would be interested in them?”

“Then what are we to do?”--began the host.--“There was nothing very

startling about my first love either; I never fell in love with any one

before Anna Ivánovna, now my wife; and everything ran as though on oil

with us; our fathers made up the match, we very promptly fell in love

with each other, and entered the bonds of matrimony without delay. My

story can be told in two words. I must confess, gentlemen, that in

raising the question of first love, I set my hopes on you, I will not

say old, but yet no longer young bachelors. Will not you divert us with

something, Vladímir Petróvitch?”

“My first love belongs, as a matter of fact, not altogether to the

ordinary category,”--replied, with a slight hesitation, Vladímir

Petróvitch, a man of forty, whose black hair was sprinkled with grey.

“Ah!”--said the host and Sergyéi Nikoláevitch in one breath.--“So much

the better.... Tell us.”

“As you like ... or no: I will not narrate; I am no great hand at

telling a story; it turns out dry and short, or long-drawn-out and

artificial. But if you will permit me, I will write down all that I

remember in a note-book, and will read it aloud to you.”

At first the friends would not consent, but Vladímir Petróvitch

insisted on having his own way. A fortnight later they came together

again, and Vladímir Sergyéitch kept his promise.

This is what his note-book contained.

I was sixteen years old at the time. The affair took place in the summer

of 1833.

I was living in Moscow, in my parents’ house. They had hired a villa

near the Kalúga barrier, opposite the Neskútchny Park.[2]--I was

preparing for the university, but was working very little and was not in

a hurry.

No one restricted my freedom. I had done whatever I pleased ever since I

had parted with my last French governor, who was utterly unable to

reconcile himself to the thought that he had fallen “like a bomb”

(_comme une bombe_) into Russia, and with a stubborn expression on his

face, wallowed in bed for whole days at a time. My father treated me in

an indifferently-affectionate way; my mother paid hardly any attention

to me, although she had no children except me: other cares engrossed

her. My father, still a young man and very handsome, had married her

from calculation; she was ten years older than he. My mother led a

melancholy life: she was incessantly in a state of agitation, jealousy,

and wrath--but not in the presence of my father; she was very much

afraid of him, and he maintained a stern, cold, and distant manner.... I

have never seen a man more exquisitely calm, self-confident, and

self-controlled.

I shall never forget the first weeks I spent at the villa. The weather

was magnificent; we had left town the ninth of May, on St. Nicholas’s

day. I rambled,--sometimes in the garden of our villa, sometimes in

Neskútchny Park, sometimes beyond the city barriers; I took with me some

book or other,--a course of Kaidánoff,--but rarely opened it, and

chiefly recited aloud poems, of which I knew a great many by heart. The

blood was fermenting in me, and my heart was aching--so sweetly and

absurdly; I was always waiting for something, shrinking at something,

and wondering at everything, and was all ready for anything at a

moment’s notice. My fancy was beginning to play, and hovered swiftly

ever around the selfsame image, as martins hover round a belfry at

sunset. But even athwart my tears and athwart the melancholy, inspired

now by a melodious verse, now by the beauty of the evening, there peered

forth, like grass in springtime, the joyous sensation of young, bubbling

life.

I had a saddle-horse; I was in the habit of saddling it myself, and

when I rode off alone as far as possible, in some direction, launching

out at a gallop and fancying myself a knight at a tourney--how blithely

the wind whistled in my ears!--Or, turning my face skyward, I welcomed

its beaming light and azure into my open soul.

I remember, at that time, the image of woman, the phantom of woman’s

love, almost never entered my mind in clearly-defined outlines; but in

everything I thought, in everything I felt, there lay hidden the

half-conscious, shamefaced presentiment of something new, inexpressibly

sweet, feminine....

This presentiment, this expectation permeated my whole being; I breathed

it, it coursed through my veins in every drop of blood ... it was fated

to be speedily realised.

Our villa consisted of a wooden manor-house with columns, and two tiny

outlying wings; in the wing to the left a tiny factory of cheap

wall-papers was installed.... More than once I went thither to watch how

half a score of gaunt, dishevelled young fellows in dirty smocks and

with tipsy faces were incessantly galloping about at the wooden levers

which jammed down the square blocks of the press, and in that manner, by

the weight of their puny bodies, printed the motley-hued patterns of the

wall-papers. The wing on the right stood empty and was for rent. One

day--three weeks after the ninth of May--the shutters on the windows of

this wing were opened, and women’s faces made their appearance in them;

some family or other had moved into it. I remember how, that same day at

dinner, my mother inquired of the butler who our new neighbours were,

and on hearing the name of Princess Zasyékin, said at first, not without

some respect:--“Ah! a Princess” ... and then she added:--“She must be

some poor person!”

“They came in three hired carriages, ma’am,”--remarked the butler, as he

respectfully presented a dish. “They have no carriage of their own,

ma’am, and their furniture is of the very plainest sort.”

“Yes,”--returned my mother,--“and nevertheless, it is better so.”

My father shot a cold glance at her; she subsided into silence.

As a matter of fact, Princess Zasyékin could not be a wealthy woman: the

wing she had hired was so old and tiny and low-roofed that people in the

least well-to-do would not have been willing to inhabit it.--However, I

let this go in at one ear and out at the other. The princely title had

little effect on me: I had recently been reading Schiller’s “The

Brigands.”

I had a habit of prowling about our garden every evening, gun in hand,

and standing guard against the crows.--I had long cherished a hatred for

those wary, rapacious and crafty birds. On the day of which I have been

speaking, I went into the garden as usual, and, after having fruitlessly

made the round of all the alleys (the crows recognised me from afar, and

merely cawed spasmodically at a distance), I accidentally approached the

low fence which separated _our_ territory from the narrow strip of

garden extending behind the right-hand wing and appertaining to it. I

was walking along with drooping head. Suddenly I heard voices: I glanced

over the fence--and was petrified.... A strange spectacle presented

itself to me.

A few paces distant from me, on a grass-plot between green

raspberry-bushes, stood a tall, graceful young girl, in a striped, pink

frock and with a white kerchief on her head; around her pressed four

young men, and she was tapping them in turn on the brow with those small

grey flowers, the name of which I do not know, but which are familiar to

children; these little flowers form tiny sacs, and burst with a pop when

they are struck against anything hard. The young men offered their

foreheads to her so willingly, and in the girl’s movements (I saw her

form in profile) there was something so bewitching, caressing, mocking,

and charming, that I almost cried aloud in wonder and pleasure; and I

believe I would have given everything in the world if those lovely

little fingers had only consented to tap me on the brow. My gun slid

down on the grass, I forgot everything, I devoured with my eyes that

slender waist, and the neck and the beautiful arms, and the slightly

ruffled fair hair, the intelligent eyes and those lashes, and the

delicate cheek beneath them....

“Young man, hey there, young man!”--suddenly spoke up a voice near

me:--“Is it permissible to stare like that at strange young ladies?”

I trembled all over, I was stupefied.... Beside me, on the other side of

the fence, stood a man with closely-clipped black hair, gazing

ironically at me. At that same moment, the young girl turned toward

me.... I beheld huge grey eyes in a mobile, animated face--and this

whole face suddenly began to quiver, and to laugh, and the white teeth

gleamed from it, the brows elevated themselves in an amusing way.... I

flushed, picked up my gun from the ground, and, pursued by ringing but

not malicious laughter, I ran to my own room, flung myself on the bed,

and covered my face with my hands. My heart was fairly leaping within

me; I felt very much ashamed and very merry: I experienced an

unprecedented emotion.

After I had rested awhile, I brushed my hair, made myself neat and went

down-stairs to tea. The image of the young girl floated in front of me;

my heart had ceased to leap, but ached in an agreeable sort of way.

“What ails thee?”--my father suddenly asked me:--“hast thou killed a

crow?”

I was on the point of telling him all, but refrained and only smiled to

myself. As I was preparing for bed, I whirled round thrice on one foot,

I know not why, pomaded my hair, got into bed and slept all night like a

dead man. Toward morning I awoke for a moment, raised my head, cast a

glance of rapture around me--and fell asleep again.

III

“How am I to get acquainted with them?” was my first thought, as soon as

I awoke in the morning. I went out into the garden before tea, but did

not approach too close to the fence, and saw no one. After tea I walked

several times up and down the street in front of the villa, and cast a

distant glance at the windows.... I thought I descried _her_ face behind

the curtains, and retreated with all possible despatch. “But I must get

acquainted,”--I thought, as I walked with irregular strides up and down

the sandy stretch which extends in front of the Neskútchny Park ... “but

how? that is the question.” I recalled the most trifling incidents of

the meeting on the previous evening; for some reason, her manner of

laughing at me presented itself to me with particular clearness.... But

while I was fretting thus and constructing various plans, Fate was

already providing for me.

During my absence, my mother had received a letter from her new

neighbour on grey paper sealed with brown wax, such as is used only on

postal notices, and on the corks of cheap wine. In this letter, written

in illiterate language, and with a slovenly chirography, the Princess

requested my mother to grant her her protection: my mother, according to

the Princess’s words, was well acquainted with the prominent people on

whom the fortune of herself and her children depended, as she had some

extremely important law-suits: “I apeal tyou,”--she wrote,--“as a knoble

woman to a knoble woman, and moarover, it is agriable to me to makeus of

this oportunity.” In conclusion, she asked permission of my mother to

call upon her. I found my mother in an unpleasant frame of mind: my

father was not at home, and she had no one with whom to take counsel. It

was impossible not to reply to a “knoble woman,” and to a Princess into

the bargain; but how to reply perplexed my mother. It seemed to her

ill-judged to write a note in French, and my mother was not strong in

Russian orthography herself--and was aware of the fact--and did not wish

to compromise herself. She was delighted at my arrival, and immediately

ordered me to go to the Princess and explain to her verbally that my

mother was always ready, to the extent of her ability, to be of service

to Her Radiance,[3] and begged that she would call upon her about one

o’clock.

This unexpectedly swift fulfilment of my secret wishes both delighted

and frightened me; but I did not betray the emotion which held

possession of me, and preliminarily betook myself to my room for the

purpose of donning a new neckcloth and coat; at home I went about in a

round-jacket and turn-over collars, although I detested them greatly.

In the cramped and dirty anteroom of the wing, which I entered with an

involuntary trembling of my whole body, I was received by a grey-haired

old serving-man with a face the hue of dark copper, pig-like, surly

little eyes, and such deep wrinkles on his forehead as I had never seen

before in my life. He was carrying on a platter the gnawed spinal bone

of a herring, and, pushing to with his foot the door which led into the

adjoining room, he said abruptly:--“What do you want?”

“Is Princess Zasyékin at home?”--I inquired.

“Vonifáty!”--screamed a quavering female voice on the other side of the

door.

The servant silently turned his back on me, thereby displaying the

badly-worn rear of his livery with its solitary, rusted, armouried

button, and went away, leaving the platter on the floor.

“Hast thou been to the police-station?”--went on that same feminine

voice. The servant muttered something in reply.--“Hey?... Some one has

come?”--was the next thing audible.... “The young gentleman from next

door?--Well, ask him in.”

“Please come into the drawing-room, sir,”--said the servant, making his

appearance again before me, and picking up the platter from the floor. I

adjusted my attire and entered the “drawing-room.”

I found myself in a tiny and not altogether clean room, with shabby

furniture which seemed to have been hastily set in place. At the window,

in an easy-chair with a broken arm, sat a woman of fifty, with uncovered

hair[4] and plain-featured, clad in an old green gown, and with a

variegated worsted kerchief round her neck. Her small black eyes fairly

bored into me.

I went up to her and made my bow.

“I have the honour of speaking to Princess Zasyékin?”

“I am Princess Zasyékin: and you are the son of Mr. B--?”

“Yes, madam. I have come to you with a message from my mother.”

“Pray be seated. Vonifáty! where are my keys? Hast thou seen them?”

I communicated to Madame Zasyékin my mother’s answer to her note. She

listened to me, tapping the window-pane with her thick, red fingers, and

when I had finished she riveted her eyes on me once more.

“Very good; I shall certainly go,”--said she at last.--“But how young

you are still! How old are you, allow me to ask?”

“Sixteen,”--I replied with involuntary hesitation.

The Princess pulled out of her pocket some dirty, written documents,

raised them up to her very nose and began to sort them over.

“‘Tis a good age,”--she suddenly articulated, turning and fidgeting in

her chair.--“And please do not stand on ceremony. We are plain folks.”

“Too plain,”--I thought, with involuntary disgust taking in with a

glance the whole of her homely figure.

At that moment, the other door of the drawing-room was swiftly thrown

wide open, and on the threshold appeared the young girl whom I had seen

in the garden the evening before. She raised her hand and a smile

flitted across her face.

“And here is my daughter,”--said the Princess, pointing at her with her

elbow.--“Zínotchka, the son of our neighbour, Mr. B--. What is your

name, permit me to inquire?”

“Vladímir,”--I replied, rising and lisping with agitation.

“And your patronymic?”

“Petróvitch.”

“Yes! I once had an acquaintance, a chief of police, whose name was

Vladímir Petróvitch also. Vonifáty! don’t hunt for the keys; the keys

are in my pocket.”

The young girl continued to gaze at me with the same smile as before,

slightly puckering up her eyes and bending her head a little on one

side.

“I have already seen M’sieu Voldemar,”--she began. (The silvery tone of

her voice coursed through me like a sweet chill.)--“Will you permit me

to call you so?”

“Pray do, madam,”--I lisped.

“Where was that?”--asked the Princess.

The young Princess did not answer her mother.

“Are you busy now?”--she said, without taking her eyes off me.

“Not in the least, madam.”

“Then will you help me to wind some wool? Come hither, to me.”

She nodded her head at me and left the drawing-room. I followed her.

In the room which we entered the furniture was a little better and was

arranged with great taste.--But at that moment I was almost unable to

notice anything; I moved as though in a dream and felt a sort of intense

sensation of well-being verging on stupidity throughout my frame.

The young Princess sat down, produced a knot of red wool, and pointing

me to a chair opposite her, she carefully unbound the skein and placed

it on my hands. She did all this in silence, with a sort of diverting

deliberation, and with the same brilliant and crafty smile on her

slightly parted lips. She began to wind the wool upon a card doubled

together, and suddenly illumined me with such a clear, swift glance,

that I involuntarily dropped my eyes. When her eyes, which were

generally half closed, opened to their full extent her face underwent a

complete change; it was as though light had inundated it.

“What did you think of me yesterday, M’sieu Voldemar?”--she asked, after

a brief pause.--“You certainly must have condemned me?”

“I ... Princess ... I thought nothing ... how can I....” I replied, in

confusion.

“Listen,”--she returned.--“You do not know me yet; I want people always

to speak the truth to me. You are sixteen, I heard, and I am twenty-one;

you see that I am a great deal older than you, and therefore you must

always speak the truth to me ... and obey me,”--she added.--“Look at me;

why don’t you look at me?”

I became still more confused; but I raised my eyes to hers,

nevertheless. She smiled, only not in her former manner, but with a

different, an approving smile.--“Look at me,”--she said, caressingly

lowering her voice:--“I don’t like that.... Your face pleases me; I

foresee that we shall be friends. And do you like me?”--she added slyly.

“Princess....” I was beginning....

“In the first place, call me Zinaída Alexándrovna; and in the second

place,--what sort of a habit is it for children”--(she corrected

herself)--“for young men--not to say straight out what they feel? You do

like me, don’t you?”

Although it was very pleasant to me to have her talk so frankly to me,

still I was somewhat nettled. I wanted to show her that she was not

dealing with a small boy, and, assuming as easy and serious a mien as I

could, I said:--“Of course I like you very much, Zinaída Alexándrovna; I

have no desire to conceal the fact.”

She shook her head, pausing at intervals.--“Have you a governor?”--she

suddenly inquired.

“No, I have not had a governor this long time past.”

I lied: a month had not yet elapsed since I had parted with my

Frenchman.

“Oh, yes, I see: you are quite grown up.”

She slapped me lightly on the fingers.--“Hold your hands straight!”--And

she busied herself diligently with winding her ball.

I took advantage of the fact that she did not raise her eyes, and set to

scrutinising her, first by stealth, then more and more boldly. Her face

seemed to me even more charming than on the day before: everything about

it was so delicate, intelligent and lovely. She was sitting with her

back to the window, which was hung with a white shade; a ray of sunlight

making its way through that shade inundated with a flood of light her

fluffy golden hair, her innocent neck, sloping shoulders, and calm,

tender bosom.--I gazed at her--and how near and dear she became to me!

It seemed to me both that I had known her for a long time and that I had

known nothing and had not lived before she came.... She wore a rather

dark, already shabby gown, with an apron; I believe I would willingly

have caressed every fold of that gown and of that apron. The tips of her

shoes peeped out from under her gown; I would have bowed down to those

little boots.... “And here I sit, in front of her,”--I thought.--“I

have become acquainted with her ... what happiness, my God!” I came

near bouncing out of my chair with rapture, but I merely dangled my feet

to and fro a little, like a child who is enjoying dainties.

I felt as much at my ease as a fish does in water, and I would have

liked never to leave that room again as long as I lived.

Her eyelids slowly rose, and again her brilliant eyes beamed caressingly

before me, and again she laughed.

“How you stare at me!”--she said slowly, shaking her finger at me.

I flushed scarlet.... “She understands all, she sees all,”--flashed

through my head. “And how could she fail to see and understand all?”

Suddenly there was a clattering in the next room, and a sword clanked.

“Zína!”--screamed the old Princess from the drawing-room.--“Byelovzóroff

has brought thee a kitten.”

“A kitten!”--cried Zinaída, and springing headlong from her chair, she

flung the ball on my knees and ran out.

I also rose, and, laying the skein of wool on the window-sill, went into

the drawing-room, and stopped short in amazement. In the centre of the

room lay a kitten with outstretched paws; Zinaída was kneeling in front

of it, and carefully raising its snout. By the side of the young

Princess, taking up nearly the entire wall-space between the windows,

was visible a fair-complexioned, curly-haired young man, a hussar, with

a rosy face and protruding eyes.

“How ridiculous!”--Zinaída kept repeating:--“and its eyes are not grey,

but green, and what big ears it has! Thank you, Viktór Egóritch! you are

very kind.”

The hussar, in whom I recognised one of the young men whom I had seen on

the preceding evening, smiled and bowed, clicking his spurs and clanking

the links of his sword as he did so.

“You were pleased to say yesterday that you wished to possess a striped

kitten with large ears ... so I have got it, madam. Your word is my

law.”--And again he bowed.

The kitten mewed faintly, and began to sniff at the floor.

“He is hungry!”--cried Zinaída.--“Vonifáty! Sónya! bring some milk.”

The chambermaid, in an old yellow gown and with a faded kerchief on her

head, entered with a saucer of milk in her hand, and placed it in front

of the kitten. The kitten quivered, blinked, and began to lap.

“What a rosy tongue it has,”--remarked Zinaída, bending her head down

almost to the floor, and looking sideways at it, under its very nose.

The kitten drank its fill, and began to purr, affectedly contracting and

relaxing its paws. Zinaída rose to her feet, and turning to the maid,

said indifferently:--“Take it away.”

“Your hand--in return for the kitten,”--said the hussar, displaying his

teeth, and bending over the whole of his huge body, tightly confined in

a new uniform.

“Both hands,”--replied Zinaída, offering him her hands. While he was

kissing them, she gazed at me over his shoulder.

I stood motionless on one spot, and did not know whether to laugh or to

say something, or to hold my peace. Suddenly, through the open door of

the anteroom, the figure of our footman, Feódor, caught my eye. He was

making signs to me. I mechanically went out to him.

“What dost thou want?”--I asked.

“Your mamma has sent for you,”--he said in a whisper.--“She is angry

because you do not return with an answer.”

“Why, have I been here long?”

“More than an hour.”

“More than an hour!”--I repeated involuntarily, and returning to the

drawing-room, I began to bow and scrape my foot.

“Where are you going?”--the young Princess asked me, with a glance at

the hussar.

“I must go home, madam. So I am to say,”--I added, addressing the old

woman,--“that you will call upon us at two o’clock.”

“Say that, my dear fellow.”

The old Princess hurriedly drew out her snuffbox, and took a pinch so

noisily that I fairly jumped.--“Say that,”--she repeated, tearfully

blinking and grunting.

I bowed once more, turned and left the room with the same sensation of

awkwardness in my back which a very young man experiences when he knows

that people are staring after him.

“Look here, M’sieu Voldemar, you must drop in to see us,”--called

Zinaída, and again burst out laughing.

“What makes her laugh all the time?” I thought, as I wended my way home

accompanied by Feódor, who said nothing to me, but moved along

disapprovingly behind me. My mother reproved me, and inquired, with

surprise, “What could I have been doing so long at the Princess’s?” I

made her no answer, and went off to my own room. I had suddenly grown

very melancholy.... I tried not to weep.... I was jealous of the hussar.

The Princess, according to her promise, called on my mother, and did not

please her. I was not present at their meeting, but at table my mother

narrated to my father that that Princess Zasyékin seemed to her a _femme

très vulgaire_; that she had bored her immensely with her requests that

she would intervene on her behalf with Prince Sergyéi; that she was

always having such law-suits and affairs,--_de vilaines affaires

d’argent_,--and that she must be a great rogue. But my mother added that

she had invited her with her daughter to dine on the following day (on

hearing the words “with her daughter,” I dropped my nose into my

plate),--because, notwithstanding, she was a neighbour, and with a name.

Thereupon my father informed my mother that he now recalled who the lady

was: that in his youth he had known the late Prince Zasyékin, a

capitally-educated but flighty and captious man; that in society he was

called “_le Parisien_,” because of his long residence in Paris; that he

had been very wealthy, but had gambled away all his property--and, no

one knew why, though probably it had been for the sake of the

money,--“although he might have made a better choice,”--added my father,

with a cold smile,--he had married the daughter of some clerk in a

chancellery, and after his marriage had gone into speculation, and

ruined himself definitively.

“‘Tis a wonder she did not try to borrow money,”--remarked my mother.

“She is very likely to do it,”--said my father, calmly.--“Does she speak

French?”

“Very badly.”

“M-m-m. However, that makes no difference. I think thou saidst that

thou hadst invited her daughter; some one assured me that she is a very

charming and well-educated girl.”

“Ah! Then she does not take after her mother.”

“Nor after her father,”--returned my father.--“He was also well

educated, but stupid.”

My mother sighed, and became thoughtful. My father relapsed into

silence. I felt very awkward during the course of that conversation.

After dinner I betook myself to the garden, but without my gun. I had

pledged my word to myself that I would not go near the “Zasyékin

garden”; but an irresistible force drew me thither, and not in vain. I

had no sooner approached the fence than I caught sight of Zinaída. This

time she was alone. She was holding a small book in her hands and

strolling slowly along the path. She did not notice me. I came near

letting her slip past; but suddenly caught myself up and coughed.

She turned round but did not pause, put aside with one hand the broad

blue ribbon of her round straw hat, looked at me, smiled quietly, and

again riveted her eyes on her book.

I pulled off my cap, and after fidgeting about a while on one spot, I

went away with a heavy heart. “_Que suis-je pour elle?_”--I thought (God

knows why) in French.

Familiar footsteps resounded behind me; I glanced round and beheld my

father advancing toward me with swift, rapid strides.

“Is that the young Princess?”--he asked me.

“Yes.”

“Dost thou know her?”

“I saw her this morning at the Princess her mother’s.”

My father halted and, wheeling abruptly round on his heels, retraced his

steps. As he came on a level with Zinaída he bowed courteously to her.

She bowed to him in return, not without some surprise on her face, and

lowered her book. I saw that she followed him with her eyes. My father

always dressed very elegantly, originally and simply; but his figure had

never seemed to me more graceful, never had his grey hat sat more

handsomely on his curls, which were barely beginning to grow thin.

I was on the point of directing my course toward Zinaída, but she did

not even look at me, but raised her book once more and walked away.

I spent the whole of that evening and the following day in a sort of

gloomy stupor. I remember that I made an effort to work, and took up

Kaidánoff; but in vain did the large-printed lines and pages of the

famous text-book flit before my eyes. Ten times in succession I read the

words: “Julius Cæsar was distinguished for military daring,” without

understanding a word, and I flung aside my book. Before dinner I pomaded

my hair again, and again donned my frock-coat and neckerchief.

“What’s that for?”--inquired my mother.--“Thou art not a student yet,

and God knows whether thou wilt pass thy examination. And thy

round-jacket was made not very long ago. Thou must not discard it!”

“There are to be guests,”--I whispered, almost in despair.

“What nonsense! What sort of guests are they?”

I was compelled to submit. I exchanged my coat for my round-jacket, but

did not remove my neckerchief. The Princess and her daughter made their

appearance half an hour before dinner; the old woman had thrown a yellow

shawl over her green gown, with which I was familiar, and had donned an

old-fashioned mob-cap with ribbons of a fiery hue. She immediately began

to talk about her notes of hand, to sigh and to bewail her poverty, and

to “importune,” but did not stand in the least upon ceremony; and she

took snuff noisily and fidgeted and wriggled in her chair as before. It

never seemed to enter her head that she was a Princess. On the other

hand, Zinaída bore herself very stiffly, almost haughtily, like a real

young Princess. Cold impassivity and dignity had made their appearance

on her countenance, and I did not recognise her,--did not recognise her

looks or her smile, although in this new aspect she seemed to me very

beautiful. She wore a thin barège gown with pale-blue figures; her hair

fell in long curls along her cheeks, in the English fashion: this

coiffure suited the cold expression of her face.

My father sat beside her during dinner, and with the exquisite and

imperturbable courtesy which was characteristic of him, showed attention

to his neighbour. He glanced at her from time to time, and she glanced

at him now and then, but in such a strange, almost hostile, manner.

Their conversation proceeded in French;--I remember that I was surprised

at the purity of Zinaída’s accent. The old Princess, as before, did not

restrain herself in the slightest degree during dinner, but ate a great

deal and praised the food. My mother evidently found her wearisome, and

answered her with a sort of sad indifference; my father contracted his

brows in a slight frown from time to time. My mother did not like

Zinaída either.

“She’s a haughty young sprig,”--she said the next day.--“And when one

comes to think of it, what is there for her to be proud of?--_avec sa

mine de grisette_!”

“Evidently, thou hast not seen any grisettes,”--my father remarked to

her.

“Of course I haven’t, God be thanked!... Only, how art thou capable of

judging of them?”

Zinaída paid absolutely no attention whatever to me. Soon after dinner

the old Princess began to take her leave.

“I shall rely upon your protection, Márya Nikoláevna and Piótr

Vasílitch,”--she said, in a sing-song tone, to my father and

mother.--“What is to be done! I have seen prosperous days, but they are

gone. Here am I a Radiance,”--she added, with an unpleasant laugh,--“but

what’s the good of an honour when you’ve nothing to eat?”--My father

bowed respectfully to her and escorted her to the door of the anteroom.

I was standing there in my round-jacket, and staring at the floor, as

though condemned to death. Zinaída’s behaviour toward me had

definitively annihilated me. What, then, was my amazement when, as she

passed me, she whispered to me hastily, and with her former affectionate

expression in her eyes:--“Come to us at eight o’clock, do you hear?

without fail....” I merely threw my hands apart in amazement;--but she

was already retreating, having thrown a white scarf over her head.

VII

Precisely at eight o’clock I entered the tiny wing inhabited by the

Princess, clad in my coat, and with my hair brushed up into a crest on

top of my head. The old servant glared surlily at me, and rose

reluctantly from his bench. Merry voices resounded in the drawing-room.

I opened the door and retreated a pace in astonishment. In the middle of

the room, on a chair, stood the young Princess, holding a man’s hat in

front of her; around the chair thronged five men. They were trying to

dip their hands into the hat, but she kept raising it on high and

shaking it violently. On catching sight of me she exclaimed:--

“Stay, stay! Here’s a new guest; he must be given a ticket,”--and

springing lightly from the chair, she seized me by the lapel of my

coat.--“Come along,”--said she;--“why do you stand there? Messieurs,

allow me to make you acquainted: this is Monsieur Voldemar, the son of

our neighbour. And this,”--she added, turning to me, and pointing to the

visitors in turn,--“is Count Malévsky, Doctor Lúshin, the poet

Maidánoff, retired Captain Nirmátzky, and Byelovzóroff the hussar, whom

you have already seen. I beg that you will love and favour each other.”

I was so confused that I did not even bow to any one; in Doctor Lúshin I

recognised that same swarthy gentleman who had so ruthlessly put me to

shame in the garden; the others were strangers to me.

“Count!”--pursued Zinaída,--“write a ticket for M’sieu Voldemar.”

“That is unjust,”--returned the Count, with a slight accent,--a very

handsome and foppishly-attired man, with a dark complexion, expressive

brown eyes, a thin, white little nose, and a slender moustache over his

tiny mouth.--“He has not been playing at forfeits with us.”

“‘Tis unjust,”--repeated Byelovzóroff and the gentleman who had been

alluded to as the retired Captain,--a man of forty, horribly pockmarked,

curly-haired as a negro, round-shouldered, bow-legged, and dressed in a

military coat without epaulets, worn open on the breast.

“Write a ticket, I tell you,”--repeated the Princess.--“What sort of a

rebellion is this? M’sieu Voldemar is with us for the first time, and

to-day no law applies to him. No grumbling--write; I will have it so.”

The Count shrugged his shoulders, but submissively bowing his head, he

took a pen in his white, ring-decked hand, tore off a scrap of paper and

began to write on it.

“Permit me at least to explain to M’sieu Voldemar what it is all

about,”--began Lúshin, in a bantering tone;--“otherwise he will be

utterly at a loss. You see, young man, we are playing at forfeits; the

Princess must pay a fine, and the one who draws out the lucky ticket

must kiss her hand. Do you understand what I have told you?”

I merely glanced at him and continued to stand as though in a fog, while

the Princess again sprang upon the chair and again began to shake the

hat. All reached up to her--I among the rest.

“Maidánoff,”--said the Princess to the tall young man with a gaunt face,

tiny mole-like eyes and extremely long, black hair,--“you, as a poet,

ought to be magnanimous and surrender your ticket to M’sieu Voldemar, so

that he may have two chances instead of one.”

But Maidánoff shook his head in refusal and tossed his hair. I put in my

hand into the hat after all the rest, drew out and unfolded a ticket....

O Lord! what were my sensations when I beheld on it, “Kiss!”

“Kiss!”--I cried involuntarily.

“Bravo! He has won,”--chimed in the Princess.--“How delighted I

am!”--She descended from the chair, and gazed into my eyes so clearly

and sweetly that my heart fairly laughed with joy.--“And are you

glad?”--she asked me.

“I?” ... I stammered.

“Sell me your ticket,”--suddenly blurted out Byelovzóroff, right in my

ear.--“I’ll give you one hundred rubles for it.”

I replied to the hussar by such a wrathful look that Zinaída clapped

her hands, and Lúshin cried:--“That’s a gallant fellow!”

“But,”--he went on,--“in my capacity of master of ceremonies, I am bound

to see that all the regulations are carried out. M’sieu Voldemar, get

down on one knee. That is our rule.”

Zinaída stood before me with her head bent a little to one side, as

though the better to scrutinise me, and offered me her hand with

dignity. Things grew dim before my eyes; I tried to get down on one

knee, plumped down on both knees, and applied my lips to Zinaída’s

fingers in so awkward a manner that I scratched the tip of my nose

slightly on her nails.

“Good!”--shouted Lúshin, and helped me to rise.

The game of forfeits continued. Zinaída placed me beside her. What

penalties they did invent! Among other things, she had to impersonate a

“statue”--and she selected as a pedestal the monstrously homely

Nirmátzky, ordering him to lie flat on the floor, and to tuck his face

into his breast. The laughter did not cease for a single moment. All

this noise and uproar, this unceremonious, almost tumultuous merriment,

these unprecedented relations with strangers, fairly flew to my head;

for I was a boy who had been reared soberly, and in solitude, and had

grown up in a stately home of gentry. I became simply intoxicated, as

though with wine. I began to shout with laughter and chatter more

loudly than the rest, so that even the old Princess, who was sitting in

the adjoining room with some sort of pettifogger from the Íversky

Gate[5] who had been summoned for a conference, came out to take a look

at me. But I felt so happy that, as the saying is, I didn’t care a

farthing for anybody’s ridicule, or anybody’s oblique glances.

Zinaída continued to display a preference for me and never let me leave

her side. In one forfeit I was made to sit by her, covered up with one

and the same silk kerchief: I was bound to tell her _my secret_. I

remember how our two heads found themselves suddenly in choking,

semi-transparent, fragrant gloom; how near and softly her eyes sparkled

in that gloom, and how hotly her parted lips breathed; and her teeth

were visible, and the tips of her hair tickled and burned me. I

maintained silence. She smiled mysteriously and slyly, and at last

whispered to me: “Well, what is it?” But I merely flushed and laughed,

and turned away, and could hardly draw my breath. We got tired of

forfeits, and began to play “string.” Good heavens! what rapture I felt

when, forgetting myself with gaping, I received from her a strong, sharp

rap on my fingers; and how afterward I tried to pretend that I was

yawning with inattention, but she mocked at me and did not touch my

hands, which were awaiting the blow!

But what a lot of other pranks we played that same evening! We played on

the piano, and sang, and danced, and represented a gipsy camp. We

dressed Nirmátzky up like a bear, and fed him with water and salt. Count

Malévsky showed us several card tricks, and ended by stacking the cards

and dealing himself all the trumps at whist; upon which Lúshin “had the

honour of congratulating him.” Maidánoff declaimed to us fragments from

his poem, “The Murderer” (this occurred in the very thick of

romanticism), which he intended to publish in a black binding, with the

title in letters of the colour of blood. We stole his hat from the knees

of the pettifogger from the Íversky Gate, and made him dance the kazák

dance by way of redeeming it. We dressed old Vonifáty up in a mob-cap,

and the young Princess put on a man’s hat.... It is impossible to

recount all we did. Byelovzóroff alone remained most of the time in a

corner, angry and frowning.... Sometimes his eyes became suffused with

blood, he grew scarlet all over and seemed to be on the very point of

swooping down upon all of us and scattering us on all sides, like chips;

but the Princess glanced at him, menaced him with her finger, and again

he retired into his corner.

We were completely exhausted at last. The old Princess was equal to

anything, as she put it,--no shouts disconcerted her,--but she felt

tired and wished to rest. At midnight supper was served, consisting of a

bit of old, dry cheese and a few cold patties filled with minced ham,

which seemed to us more savoury than any pasty; there was only one

bottle of wine, and that was rather queer:--dark, with a swollen neck,

and the wine in it left an after-taste of pinkish dye; however, no one

drank it. Weary and happy to exhaustion, I emerged from the wing; a

thunder-storm seemed to be brewing; the black storm-clouds grew larger

and crept across the sky, visibly altering their smoky outlines. A light

breeze was uneasily quivering in the dark trees, and somewhere beyond

the horizon the thunder was growling angrily and dully, as though to

itself.

I made my way through the back door to my room. My nurse-valet was

sleeping on the floor and I was obliged to step over him; he woke up,

saw me, and reported that my mother was angry with me, and had wanted to

send after me again, but that my father had restrained her. I never went

to bed without having bidden my mother good night and begged her

blessing. There was no help for it! I told my valet that I would undress

myself and go to bed unaided,--and extinguished the candle. But I did

not undress and I did not go to bed.

I seated myself on a chair and sat there for a long time, as though

enchanted. That which I felt was so new and so sweet.... I sat there,

hardly looking around me and without moving, breathing slowly, and only

laughing silently now, as I recalled, now inwardly turning cold at the

thought that I was in love, that here it was, that love. Zinaída’s face

floated softly before me in the darkness--floated, but did not float

away; her lips still smiled as mysteriously as ever, her eyes gazed

somewhat askance at me, interrogatively, thoughtfully and tenderly ...

as at the moment when I had parted from her. At last I rose on tiptoe,

stepped to my bed and cautiously, without undressing, laid my head on

the pillow, as though endeavouring by the sharp movement to frighten off

that wherewith I was filled to overflowing....

I lay down, but did not even close an eye. I speedily perceived that

certain faint reflections kept constantly falling into my room.... I

raised myself and looked out of the window. Its frame was distinctly

defined from the mysteriously and confusedly whitened panes. “‘Tis the

thunder-storm,”--I thought,--and so, in fact, there was a thunder-storm;

but it had passed very far away, so that even the claps of thunder were

not audible; only in the sky long, indistinct, branching flashes of

lightning, as it were, were uninterruptedly flashing up. They were not

flashing up so much as they were quivering and twitching, like the wing

of a dying bird. I rose, went to the window, and stood there until

morning.... The lightning-flashes never ceased for a moment; it was what

is called a pitch-black night. I gazed at the dumb, sandy plain, at the

dark mass of the Neskútchny Park, at the yellowish façades of the

distant buildings, which also seemed to be trembling at every faint

flash.... I gazed, and could not tear myself away; those dumb

lightning-flashes, those restrained gleams, seemed to be responding to

the dumb and secret outbursts which were flaring up within me also.

Morning began to break; the dawn started forth in scarlet patches. With

the approach of the sun the lightning-flashes grew paler and paler; they

quivered more and more infrequently, and vanished at last, drowned in

the sobering and unequivocal light of the breaking day.

And my lightning-flashes vanished within me also. I felt great fatigue

and tranquillity ... but Zinaída’s image continued to hover triumphantly

over my soul. Only it, that image, seemed calm; like a flying swan from

the marshy sedges, it separated itself from the other ignoble figures

which surrounded it, and as I fell asleep, I bowed down before it for

the last time in farewell and confiding adoration....

Oh, gentle emotions, soft sounds, kindness and calming of the

deeply-moved soul, melting joy of the first feelings of love,--where are

ye, where are ye?

VIII

On the following morning, when I went down-stairs to tea, my mother

scolded me,--although less than I had anticipated,--and made me narrate

how I had spent the preceding evening. I answered her in few words,

omitting many particulars and endeavouring to impart to my narrative the

most innocent of aspects.

“Nevertheless, they are not people _comme il faut_,”--remarked my

mother;--“and I do not wish thee to run after them, instead of preparing

thyself for the examination, and occupying thyself.”

As I knew that my mother’s anxiety was confined to these few words, I

did not consider it necessary to make her any reply; but after tea my

father linked his arm in mine, and betaking himself to the garden with

me, made me tell him everything I had done and seen at the Zasyékins’.

My father possessed a strange influence over me, and our relations were

strange. He paid hardly any attention to my education, but he never

wounded me; he respected my liberty--he was even, if I may so express

it, courteous to me ... only, he did not allow me to get close to him.

I loved him, I admired him; he seemed to me a model man; and great

heavens! how passionately attached to him I should have been, had I not

constantly felt his hand warding me off! On the other hand, when he

wished, he understood how to evoke in me, instantaneously, with one

word, one movement, unbounded confidence in him. My soul opened, I

chatted with him as with an intelligent friend, as with an indulgent

preceptor ... then, with equal suddenness, he abandoned me, and again

his hand repulsed me, caressingly and softly, but repulsed nevertheless.

Sometimes a fit of mirth came over him, and then he was ready to frolic

and play with me like a boy (he was fond of every sort of energetic

bodily exercise); once--only once--did he caress me with so much

tenderness that I came near bursting into tears.... But his mirth and

tenderness also vanished without leaving a trace, and what had taken

place between us gave me no hopes for the future; it was just as though

I had seen it all in a dream. I used to stand and scrutinise his clever,

handsome, brilliant face ... and my heart would begin to quiver, and my

whole being would yearn toward him, ... and he would seem to feel what

was going on within me, and would pat me on the cheek in passing--and

either go away, or begin to occupy himself with something, or suddenly

freeze all over,--as he alone knew how to freeze,--and I would

immediately shrivel up and grow frigid also. His rare fits of affection

for me were never called forth by my speechless but intelligible

entreaties; they always came upon him without warning. When meditating,

in after years, upon my father’s character, I came to the conclusion

that he did not care for me or for family life; he loved something

different, and enjoyed that other thing to the full. “Seize what thou

canst thyself, and do not give thyself into any one’s power; the whole

art of life consists in belonging to one’s self,”--he said to me once.

On another occasion I, in my capacity of a young democrat, launched out

in his presence into arguments about liberty (he was what I called

“kind” that day; at such times one could say whatever one liked to

him).--“Liberty,”--he repeated,--“but dost thou know what can give a man

liberty?”

“What?”

“Will, his own will, and the power which it gives is better than

liberty. Learn to will, and thou wilt be free, and wilt command.”

My father wished, first of all and most of all, to enjoy life--and he

did enjoy life.... Perhaps he had a presentiment that he was not fated

long to take advantage of the “art” of living: he died at the age of

forty-two.

I described to my father in detail my visit to the Zasyékins. He

listened to me half-attentively, half-abstractedly, as he sat on the

bench and drew figures on the sand with the tip of his riding-whip. Now

and then he laughed, glanced at me in a brilliant, amused sort of way,

and spurred me on by brief questions and exclamations. At first I could

not bring myself even to utter Zinaída’s name, but I could not hold out,

and began to laud her. My father still continued to laugh. Then he

became thoughtful, dropped his eyes and rose to his feet.

I recalled the fact that, as he came out of the house, he had given

orders that his horse should be saddled. He was a capital rider, and

knew much better how to tame the wildest horses than did Mr. Rarey.

“Shall I ride with thee, papa?”--I asked him.

“No,”--he replied, and his face assumed its habitual

indifferently-caressing expression.--“Go alone, if thou wishest; but

tell the coachman that I shall not go.”

He turned his back on me and walked swiftly away. I followed him with my

eyes, until he disappeared beyond the gate. I saw his hat moving along

the fence; he went into the Zasyékins’ house.

He remained with them no more than an hour, but immediately thereafter

went off to town and did not return home until evening.

After dinner I went to the Zasyékins’ myself. I found no one in the

drawing-room but the old Princess. When she saw me, she scratched her

head under her cap with the end of her knitting-needle, and suddenly

asked me: would I copy a petition for her?

“With pleasure,”--I replied, and sat down on the edge of a chair.

“Only look out, and see that you make the letters as large as

possible,”--said the Princess, handing me a sheet of paper scrawled over

in a slovenly manner:--“and couldn’t you do it to-day, my dear fellow?”

“I will copy it this very day, madam.”

The door of the adjoining room opened a mere crack and Zinaída’s face

showed itself in the aperture,--pale, thoughtful, with hair thrown

carelessly back. She stared at me with her large, cold eyes, and softly

shut the door.

“Zína,--hey there, Zína!”--said the old woman. Zinaída did not answer. I

carried away the old woman’s petition, and sat over it the whole

evening.

My “passion” began with that day. I remember that I then felt something

of that which a man must feel when he enters the service: I had already

ceased to be a young lad; I was in love. I have said that my passion

dated from that day; I might have added that my sufferings also dated

from that day. I languished when absent from Zinaída; my mind would not

work, everything fell from my hands; I thought intently of her for days

together.... I languished ... but in her presence I was no more at ease.

I was jealous, I recognised my insignificance, I stupidly sulked and

stupidly fawned; and, nevertheless, an irresistible force drew me to

her, and every time I stepped across the threshold of her room, it was

with an involuntary thrill of happiness. Zinaída immediately divined

that I had fallen in love with her, and I never thought of concealing

the fact; she mocked at my passion, played tricks on me, petted and

tormented me. It is sweet to be the sole source, the autocratic and

irresponsible cause of the greatest joys and the profoundest woe to

another person, and I was like soft wax in Zinaída’s hands. However, I

was not the only one who was in love with her; all the men who were in

the habit of visiting her house were crazy over her, and she kept them

all in a leash at her feet. It amused her to arouse in them now hopes,

now fears, to twist them about at her caprice (she called it, “knocking

people against one another”),--and they never thought of resisting, and

willingly submitted to her. In all her vivacious and beautiful being

there was a certain peculiarly bewitching mixture of guilefulness and

heedlessness, of artificiality and simplicity, of tranquillity and

playfulness; over everything she did or said, over her every movement,

hovered a light, delicate charm, and an original, sparkling force made

itself felt in everything. And her face was incessantly changing and

sparkling also; it expressed almost simultaneously derision,

pensiveness, and passion. The most varied emotions, light, fleeting as

the shadows of the clouds on a sunny, windy day, kept flitting over her

eyes and lips.

Every one of her adorers was necessary to her. Byelovzóroff, whom she

sometimes called “my wild beast,” and sometimes simply “my own,” would

gladly have flung himself into the fire for her; without trusting to his

mental capacities and other merits, he kept proposing that he should

marry her, and hinting that the others were merely talking idly.

Maidánoff responded to the poetical chords of her soul: a rather cold

man, as nearly all writers are, he assured her with intense force--and

perhaps himself also--that he adored her. He sang her praises in

interminable verses and read them to her with an unnatural and a genuine

sort of enthusiasm. And she was interested in him and jeered lightly at

him; she did not believe in him greatly, and after listening to his

effusions she made him read Púshkin, in order, as she said, to purify

the air. Lúshin, the sneering doctor, who was cynical in speech, knew

her best of all and loved her best of all, although he abused her to her

face and behind her back. She respected him, but would not let him go,

and sometimes, with a peculiar, malicious pleasure, made him feel that

he was in her hands. “I am a coquette, I am heartless, I have the nature

of an actress,” she said to him one day in my presence; “and ’tis well!

So give me your hand and I will stick a pin into it, and you will feel

ashamed before this young man, and it will hurt you; but nevertheless,

Mr. Upright Man, you will be so good as to laugh.” Lúshin flushed

crimson, turned away and bit his lips, but ended by putting out his

hand. She pricked it, and he actually did break out laughing ... and she

laughed also, thrusting the pin in pretty deeply and gazing into his

eyes while he vainly endeavoured to glance aside....

I understood least of all the relations existing between Zinaída and

Count Malévsky. That he was handsome, adroit, and clever even I felt,

but the presence in him of some false, dubious element, was palpable

even to me, a lad of sixteen, and I was amazed that Zinaída did not

notice it. But perhaps she did detect that false element and it did not

repel her. An irregular education, strange acquaintances, the constant

presence of her mother, the poverty and disorder in the house--all this,

beginning with the very freedom which the young girl enjoyed, together

with the consciousness of her own superiority to the people who

surrounded her, had developed in her a certain half-scornful

carelessness and lack of exaction. No matter what happened--whether

Vonifáty came to report that there was no sugar, or some wretched bit

of gossip came to light, or the visitors got into a quarrel among

themselves, she merely shook her curls, and said: “Nonsense!”--and

grieved very little over it.

On the contrary, all my blood would begin to seethe when Malévsky would

approach her, swaying his body cunningly like a fox, lean elegantly over

the back of her chair and begin to whisper in her ear with a conceited

and challenging smile, while she would fold her arms on her breast, gaze

attentively at him and smile also, shaking her head the while.

“What possesses you to receive Malévsky?”--I asked her one day.

“Why, he has such handsome eyes,”--she replied.--“But that is no

business of yours.”

“You are not to think that I am in love with him,”--she said to me on

another occasion.--“No; I cannot love people upon whom I am forced to

look down. I must have some one who can subdue me.... And I shall not

hit upon such an one, for God is merciful! I shall not spare any one who

falls into my paws--no, no!”

“Do you mean to say that you will never fall in love?”

“And how about you? Don’t I love you?”--she said, tapping me on the nose

with the tip of her glove.

Yes, Zinaída made great fun of me. For the space of three weeks I saw

her every day; and what was there that she did not do to me! She came to

us rarely, but I did not regret that; in our house she was converted

into a young lady, a Princess,--and I avoided her. I was afraid of

betraying myself to my mother; she was not at all well disposed toward

Zinaída, and kept a disagreeable watch on us. I was not so much afraid

of my father; he did not appear to notice me, and talked little with

her, but that little in a peculiarly clever and significant manner. I

ceased to work, to read; I even ceased to stroll about the environs and

to ride on horseback. Like a beetle tied by the leg, I hovered

incessantly around the beloved wing; I believe I would have liked to

remain there forever ... but that was impossible. My mother grumbled at

me, and sometimes Zinaída herself drove me out. On such occasions I shut

myself up in my own room, or walked off to the very end of the garden,

climbed upon the sound remnant of a tall stone hothouse, and dangling my

legs over the wall, I sat there for hours and stared,--stared without

seeing anything. White butterflies lazily flitted among the nettles

beside me; an audacious sparrow perched not far off on the

half-demolished red bricks and twittered in an irritating manner,

incessantly twisting his whole body about and spreading out his tail;

the still distrustful crows now and then emitted a caw, as they sat

high, high above me on the naked crest of a birch-tree; the sun and the

wind played softly through its sparse branches; the chiming of the

bells, calm and melancholy, at the Don Monastery was wafted to me now

and then,--and I sat on, gazing and listening, and became filled with a

certain nameless sensation which embraced everything: sadness and joy,

and a presentiment of the future, and the desire and the fear of life.

But I understood nothing at the time of all that which was fermenting

within me, or I would have called it all by one name, the name of

Zinaída.

But Zinaída continued to play with me as a cat plays with a mouse. Now

she coquetted with me, and I grew agitated and melted with emotion; now

she repulsed me, and I dared not approach her, dared not look at her.

I remember that she was very cold toward me for several days in

succession and I thoroughly quailed, and when I timidly ran to the wing

to see them, I tried to keep near the old Princess, despite the fact

that she was scolding and screaming a great deal just at that time: her

affairs connected with her notes of hand were going badly, and she had

also had two scenes with the police-captain of the precinct.

One day I was walking through the garden, past the familiar fence, when

I caught sight of Zinaída. Propped up on both arms, she was sitting

motionless on the grass. I tried to withdraw cautiously, but she

suddenly raised her head and made an imperious sign to me. I became

petrified on the spot; I did not understand her the first time. She

repeated her sign. I immediately sprang over the fence and ran joyfully

to her; but she stopped me with a look and pointed to the path a couple

of paces from her. In my confusion, not knowing what to do, I knelt down

on the edge of the path. She was so pale, such bitter grief, such

profound weariness were revealed in her every feature, that my heart

contracted within me, and I involuntarily murmured: “What is the matter

with you?”

Zinaída put out her hand, plucked a blade of grass, bit it, and tossed

it away as far as she could.

“Do you love me very much?”--she inquired suddenly.--“Yes?”

I made no answer,--and what answer was there for me to make?

“Yes,”--she repeated, gazing at me as before.--“It is so. They are the

same eyes,”--she added, becoming pensive, and covering her face with her

hands.--“Everything has become repulsive to me,”--she whispered;--“I

would like to go to the end of the world; I cannot endure this, I cannot

reconcile myself.... And what is in store for me?... Akh, I am heavy at

heart ... my God, how heavy at heart!”

“Why?”--I timidly inquired.

Zinaída did not answer me and merely shrugged her shoulders. I continued

to kneel and to gaze at her with profound melancholy. Every word of

hers fairly cut me to the heart. At that moment, I think I would

willingly have given my life to keep her from grieving. I gazed at her,

and nevertheless, not understanding why she was heavy at heart, I

vividly pictured to myself how, in a fit of uncontrollable sorrow, she

had suddenly gone into the garden, and had fallen on the earth, as

though she had been mowed down. All around was bright and green; the

breeze was rustling in the foliage of the trees, now and then rocking a

branch of raspberry over Zinaída’s head. Doves were cooing somewhere and

the bees were humming as they flew low over the scanty grass. Overhead

the sky shone blue,--but I was so sad....

“Recite some poetry to me,”--said Zinaída in a low voice, leaning on her

elbow.--“I like to hear you recite verses. You make them go in a

sing-song, but that does not matter, it is youthful. Recite to me: ‘On

the Hills of Georgia.’--Only, sit down first.”

I sat down and recited, “On the Hills of Georgia.”

“‘That it is impossible not to love,’”--repeated Zinaída.--“That is why

poetry is so nice; it says to us that which does not exist, and which is

not only better than what does exist, but even more like the truth....

‘That it is impossible not to love’?--I would like to, but

cannot!”--Again she fell silent for a space, then suddenly started and

rose to her feet.--“Come along. Maidánoff is sitting with mamma; he

brought his poem to me, but I left him. He also is embittered now ...

how can it be helped? Some day you will find out ... but you must not be

angry with me!”

Zinaída hastily squeezed my hand, and ran on ahead. We returned to the

wing. Maidánoff set to reading us his poem of “The Murderer,” which had

only just been printed, but I did not listen. He shrieked out his

four-footed iambics in a sing-song voice; the rhymes alternated and

jingled like sleigh-bells, hollow and loud; but I kept staring all the

while at Zinaída, and striving to understand the meaning of her strange

words.

“Or, perchance, a secret rival

Has unexpectedly subjugated thee?”

suddenly exclaimed Maidánoff through his nose--and my eyes and Zinaída’s

met. She dropped hers and blushed faintly. I saw that she was blushing,

and turned cold with fright. I had been jealous before, but only at that

moment did the thought that she had fallen in love flash through my

mind. “My God! She is in love!”

My real tortures began from that moment. I cudgelled my brains, I

pondered and pondered again, and watched Zinaída importunately, but

secretly, as far as possible. A change had taken place in her, that was

evident. She took to going off alone to walk, and walked a long while.

Sometimes she did not show herself to her visitors; she sat for hours

together in her chamber. This had not been her habit hitherto. Suddenly

I became--or it seemed to me that I became--extremely penetrating. “Is

it he? Or is it not he?”--I asked myself, as in trepidation I mentally

ran from one of her admirers to another. Count Malévsky (although I felt

ashamed to admit it for Zinaída’s sake) privately seemed to me more

dangerous than the others.

My powers of observation extended no further than the end of my own

nose, and my dissimulation probably failed to deceive any one; at all

events, Doctor Lúshin speedily saw through me. Moreover, he also had

undergone a change of late; he had grown thin, he laughed as frequently

as ever, but somehow it was in a duller, more spiteful, a briefer

way;--an involuntary, nervous irritability had replaced his former light

irony and feigned cynicism.

“Why are you forever tagging on here, young man?”--he said to me one

day, when he was left alone with me in the Zasyékins’ drawing-room. (The

young Princess had not yet returned from her stroll and the shrill voice

of the old Princess was resounding in the upper story; she was wrangling

with her maid.)--“You ought to be studying your lessons, working while

you are young;--but instead of that, what are you doing?”

“You cannot tell whether I work at home,”--I retorted not without

arrogance, but also not without confusion.

“Much work you do! That’s not what you have in your head. Well, I will

not dispute ... at your age, that is in the natural order of things. But

your choice is far from a happy one. Can’t you see what sort of a house

this is?”

“I do not understand you,”--I remarked.

“You don’t understand me? So much the worse for you. I regard it as my

duty to warn you. Fellows like me, old bachelors, may sit here: what

harm will it do us? We are a hardened lot. You can’t pierce our hide,

but your skin is still tender; the air here is injurious for

you,--believe me, you may become infected.”

“How so?”

“Because you may. Are you healthy now? Are you in a normal condition? Is

what you are feeling useful to you, good for you?”

“But what am I feeling?”--said I;--and in my secret soul I admitted that

the doctor was right.

“Eh, young man, young man,”--pursued the doctor, with an expression as

though something extremely insulting to me were contained in those two

words;--“there’s no use in your dissimulating, for what you have in

your soul you still show in your face, thank God! But what’s the use of

arguing? I would not come hither myself, if ...” (the doctor set his

teeth) ... “if I were not such an eccentric fellow. Only this is what

amazes me--how you, with your intelligence, can fail to see what is

going on around you.”

“But what is going on?”--I interposed, pricking up my ears.

The doctor looked at me with a sort of sneering compassion.

“A nice person I am,”--said he, as though speaking to himself.--“What

possessed me to say that to him. In a word,”--he added, raising his

voice,--“I repeat to you: the atmosphere here is not good for you. You

find it pleasant here, and no wonder! And the scent of a hothouse is

pleasant also--but one cannot live in it! Hey! hearken to me,--set to

work again on Kaidánoff.”

The old Princess entered and began to complain to the doctor of

toothache. Then Zinaída made her appearance.

“Here,”--added the old Princess,--“scold her, doctor, do. She drinks

iced water all day long; is that healthy for her, with her weak chest?”

“Why do you do that?”--inquired Lúshin.

“But what result can it have?”

“What result? You may take cold and die.”

“Really? Is it possible? Well, all right--that just suits me!”

“You don’t say so!”--growled the doctor. The old Princess went away.

“I do say so,”--retorted Zinaída.--“Is living such a cheerful thing?

Look about you.... Well--is it nice? Or do you think that I do not

understand it, do not feel it? It affords me pleasure to drink iced

water, and you can seriously assure me that such a life is worth too

much for me to imperil it for a moment’s pleasure--I do not speak of

happiness.”

“Well, yes,”--remarked Lúshin:--“caprice and independence.... Those two

words sum you up completely; your whole nature lies in those two words.”

Zinaída burst into a nervous laugh.

“You’re too late by one mail, my dear doctor. You observe badly; you are

falling behind.--Put on your spectacles.--I am in no mood for caprices

now; how jolly to play pranks on you or on myself!--and as for

independence.... M’sieu Voldemar,”--added Zinaída, suddenly stamping her

foot,--“don’t wear a melancholy face. I cannot endure to have people

commiserating me.”--She hastily withdrew.

“This atmosphere is injurious, injurious to you, young man,”--said

Lúshin to me once more.

On the evening of that same day the customary visitors assembled at the

Zasyékins’; I was among the number.

The conversation turned on Maidánoff’s poem; Zinaída candidly praised

it.--“But do you know what?”--she said:--“If I were a poet, I would

select other subjects. Perhaps this is all nonsense, but strange

thoughts sometimes come into my head, especially when I am wakeful

toward morning, when the sky is beginning to turn pink and grey.--I

would, for example.... You will not laugh at me?”

“No! No!”--we all exclaimed with one voice.

“I would depict,”--she went on, crossing her arms on her breast, and

turning her eyes aside,--“a whole company of young girls, by night, in a

big boat, on a tranquil river. The moon is shining, and they are all in

white and wear garlands of white flowers, and they are singing, you

know, something in the nature of a hymn.”

“I understand, I understand, go on,”--said Maidánoff significantly and

dreamily.

“Suddenly there is a noise--laughter, torches, tambourines on the

shore.... It is a throng of bacchantes running with songs and outcries.

It is your business to draw the picture, Mr. Poet ... only I would like

to have the torches red and very smoky, and that the eyes of the

bacchantes should gleam beneath their wreaths, and that the wreaths

should be dark. Don’t forget also tiger-skins and cups--and gold, a

great deal of gold.”

“But where is the gold to be?” inquired Maidánoff, tossing back his lank

hair and inflating his nostrils.

“Where? On the shoulders, the hands, the feet, everywhere. They say that

in ancient times women wore golden rings on their ankles.--The

bacchantes call the young girls in the boat to come to them. The girls

have ceased to chant their hymn,--they cannot go on with it,--but they

do not stir; the river drifts them to the shore. And now suddenly one of

them rises quietly.... This must be well described: how she rises

quietly in the moonlight, and how startled her companions are.... She

has stepped over the edge of the boat, the bacchantes have surrounded

her, they have dashed off into the night, into the gloom.... Present at

this point smoke in clouds; and everything has become thoroughly

confused. Nothing is to be heard but their whimpering, and her wreath

has been left lying on the shore.”

Zinaída ceased speaking. “Oh, she is in love!”--I thought again.

“Is that all?”--asked Maidánoff.

“That is all,”--she replied.

“That cannot be made the subject of an entire poem,”--he remarked

pompously,--“but I will utilise your idea for some lyrical verses.”

“In the romantic vein?”--asked Malévsky.

“Of course, in the romantic vein--in Byron’s style.”

“But in my opinion, Hugo is better than Byron,”--remarked the young

Count, carelessly:--“he is more interesting.”

“Hugo is a writer of the first class,”--rejoined Maidánoff, “and my

friend Tonkoshéeff, in his Spanish romance, ‘El Trovador’....”

“Ah, that’s the book with the question-marks turned upside

down?”--interrupted Zinaída.

“Yes. That is the accepted custom among the Spaniards. I was about to

say that Tonkoshéeff....”

“Come now! You will begin to wrangle again about classicism and

romanticism,”--Zinaída interrupted him again.--“Let us rather play....”

“At forfeits?”--put in Lúshin.

“No, forfeits is tiresome; but at comparisons.” (This game had been

invented by Zinaída herself; some object was named, and each person

tried to compare it with something or other, and the one who matched the

thing with the best comparison received a prize.) She went to the

window. The sun had just set; long, crimson clouds hung high aloft in

the sky.

“What are those clouds like?”--inquired Zinaída and, without waiting for

our answers, she said:--“I think that they resemble those crimson sails

which were on Cleopatra’s golden ship, when she went to meet Antony. You

were telling me about that not long ago, do you remember, Maidánoff?”

All of us, like Polonius in “Hamlet,” decided that the clouds reminded

us precisely of those sails, and that none of us could find a better

comparison.

“And how old was Antony at that time?”--asked Zinaída.

“He was assuredly still a young man,”--remarked Malévsky.

“Yes, he was young,”--assented Maidánoff confidently.

“Excuse me,”--exclaimed Lúshin,--“he was over forty years of age.”

“Over forty years of age,”--repeated Zinaída, darting a swift glance at

him....

I soon went home.--“She is in love,” my lips whispered involuntarily....

“But with whom?”

XII

The days passed by. Zinaída grew more and more strange, more and more

incomprehensible. One day I entered her house and found her sitting on a

straw-bottomed chair, with her head pressed against the sharp edge of a

table. She straightened up ... her face was again all bathed in tears.

“Ah! It’s you!”--she said, with a harsh grimace.--“Come hither.”

I went up to her: she laid her hand on my head and, suddenly seizing me

by the hair, began to pull it.

“It hurts” ... I said at last.

“Ah! It hurts! And doesn’t it hurt me? Doesn’t it hurt me?”--she

repeated.

“Aï!”--she suddenly cried, perceiving that she had pulled out a small

tuft of my hair.--“What have I done? Poor M’sieu Voldemar!” She

carefully straightened out the hairs she had plucked out, wound them

round her finger, and twisted them into a ring.

“I will put your hair in my locket and wear it,”--she said, and tears

glistened in her eyes.--“Perhaps that will comfort you a little ... but

now, good-bye.”

I returned home and found an unpleasant state of things there. A scene

was in progress between my father and my mother; she was upbraiding him

for something or other, while he, according to his wont, was maintaining

a cold, polite silence--and speedily went away. I could not hear what my

mother was talking about, neither did I care to know: I remember only,

that, at the conclusion of the scene, she ordered me to be called to her

boudoir, and expressed herself with great dissatisfaction about my

frequent visits at the house of the old Princess, who was, according to

her assertions, _une femme capable de tout_. I kissed her hand (I always

did that when I wanted to put an end to the conversation), and went off

to my own room. Zinaída’s tears had completely discomfited me; I

positively did not know what to think, and was ready to cry myself: I

was still a child, in spite of my sixteen years. I thought no more of

Malévsky, although Byelovzóroff became more and more menacing every day,

and glared at the shifty Count like a wolf at a sheep; but I was not

thinking of anything or of anybody. I lost myself in conjectures and

kept seeking isolated spots. I took a special fancy to the ruins of the

hothouse. I could clamber up on the high wall, seat myself, and sit

there such an unhappy, lonely, and sad youth that I felt sorry for

myself--and how delightful those mournful sensations were, how I gloated

over them!...

One day, I was sitting thus on the wall, gazing off into the distance

and listening to the chiming of the bells ... when suddenly something

ran over me--not a breeze exactly, not a shiver, but something

resembling a breath, the consciousness of some one’s proximity.... I

dropped my eyes. Below me, in a light grey gown, with a pink parasol on

her shoulder, Zinaída was walking hastily along the road. She saw me,

halted, and, pushing up the brim of her straw hat, raised her velvety

eyes to mine.

“What are you doing there, on such a height?”--she asked me, with a

strange sort of smile.--“There now,”--she went on,--“you are always

declaring that you love me--jump down to me here on the road if you

really do love me.”

Before the words were well out of Zinaída’s mouth I had flown down,

exactly as though some one had given me a push from behind. The wall was

about two fathoms high. I landed on the ground with my feet, but the

shock was so violent that I could not retain my balance; I fell, and

lost consciousness for a moment. When I came to myself I felt, without

opening my eyes, that Zinaída was by my side.--“My dear boy,”--she was

saying, as she bent over me--and tender anxiety was audible in her

voice--“how couldst thou do that, how couldst thou obey?... I love thee

... rise.”

Her breast was heaving beside me, her hands were touching my head, and

suddenly--what were my sensations then!--her soft, fresh lips began to

cover my whole face with kisses ... they touched my lips.... But at this

point Zinaída probably divined from the expression of my face that I had

already recovered consciousness, although I still did not open my

eyes--and swiftly rising to her feet, she said:--“Come, get up, you

rogue, you foolish fellow! Why do you lie there in the dust?”--I got up.

“Give me my parasol,”--said Zinaída.--“I have thrown it somewhere; and

don’t look at me like that what nonsense is this? You are hurt? You have

burned yourself with the nettles, I suppose. Don’t look at me like that,

I tell you.... Why, he understands nothing, he doesn’t answer me,”--she

added, as though speaking to herself.... “Go home, M’sieu Voldemar,

brush yourself off, and don’t dare to follow me--if you do I shall be

very angry, and I shall never again....”

She did not finish her speech and walked briskly away, while I sat down

by the roadside ... my legs would not support me. The nettles had stung

my hands, my back ached, and my head was reeling; but the sensation of

beatitude which I then experienced has never since been repeated in my

life. It hung like a sweet pain in all my limbs and broke out at last in

rapturous leaps and exclamations. As a matter of fact, I was still a

child.

XIII

I was so happy and proud all that day; I preserved so vividly on my

visage the feeling of Zinaída’s kisses; I recalled her every word with

such ecstasy; I so cherished my unexpected happiness that I even became

frightened; I did not even wish to see her who was the cause of those

new sensations. It seemed to me that I could ask nothing more of Fate,

that now I must “take and draw a deep breath for the last time, and

die.” On the other hand, when I set off for the wing next day, I felt a

great agitation, which I vainly endeavoured to conceal beneath the

discreet facial ease suitable for a man who wishes to let it be

understood that he knows how to keep a secret. Zinaída received me very

simply, without any emotion, merely shaking her finger at me and asking:

Had I any bruises? All my discreet ease of manner and mysteriousness

instantly disappeared, and along with them my agitation. Of course I had

not expected anything in particular, but Zinaída’s composure acted on me

like a dash of cold water. I understood that I was a child in her

eyes--and my heart waxed very heavy! Zinaída paced to and fro in the

room, smiling swiftly every time she glanced at me; but her thoughts

were far away, I saw that clearly.... “Shall I allude to what happened

yesterday myself,”--I thought;--“shall I ask her where she was going in

such haste, in order to find out, definitively?” ... but I merely waved

my hand in despair and sat down in a corner.

Byelovzóroff entered; I was delighted to see him.

“I have not found you a gentle saddle-horse,”--he began in a surly

tone;--“Freitag vouches to me for one--but I am not convinced. I am

afraid.”

“Of what are you afraid, allow me to inquire?” asked Zinaída.

“Of what? Why, you don’t know how to ride. God forbid that any accident

should happen! And what has put that freak into your head?”

“Come, that’s my affair, M’sieu my wild beast. In that case, I will ask

Piótr Vasílievitch”.... (My father was called Piótr Vasílievitch.... I

was amazed that she should mention his name so lightly and freely,

exactly as though she were convinced of his readiness to serve her.)

“You don’t say so!”--retorted Byelovzóroff.--“Is it with him that you

wish to ride?”

“With him or some one else,--that makes no difference to you. Only not

with you.”

“Not with me,”--said Byelovzóroff.--“As you like. What does it matter? I

will get you the horse.”

“But see to it that it is not a cow-like beast. I warn you in advance

that I mean to gallop.”

“Gallop, if you wish.... But is it with Malévsky that you are going to

ride?”

“And why shouldn’t I ride with him, warrior? Come, quiet down. I’ll take

you too. You know that for me Malévsky is now--fie!”--She shook her

head.

“You say that just to console me,”--growled Byelovzóroff.

Zinaída narrowed her eyes.--“Does that console you? oh ... oh oh ...

warrior!”--she said at last, as though unable to find any other

word.--“And would you like to ride with us, M’sieu Voldemar?”

“I’m not fond of riding ... in a large party,” ... I muttered, without

raising my eyes.

“You prefer a _tête-à-tête_?... Well, every one to his taste,”--she

said, with a sigh.--“But go, Byelovzóroff, make an effort. I want the

horse for to-morrow.”

“Yes; but where am I to get the money?”--interposed the old Princess.

Zinaída frowned.

“I am not asking any from you; Byelovzóroff will trust me.”

“He will, he will,” grumbled the old Princess--and suddenly screamed at

the top of her voice:--“Dunyáshka!”

“_Maman_, I made you a present of a bell,”--remarked the young Princess.

“Dunyáshka!”--repeated the old woman.

Byelovzóroff bowed himself out; I went out with him. Zinaída did not

detain me.

XIV

I rose early the next morning, cut myself a staff, and went off beyond

the city barrier. “I’ll have a walk and banish my grief,”--I said to

myself. It was a beautiful day, brilliant but not too hot; a cheerful,

fresh breeze was blowing over the earth and rustling and playing

moderately, keeping in constant motion and agitating nothing. For a long

time I roamed about on the hills and in the forests. I did not feel

happy; I had left home with the intention of surrendering myself to

melancholy;--but youth, the fine weather, the fresh air, the diversion

of brisk pedestrian exercise, the delight of lying in solitude on the

thick grass, produced their effect; the memory of those unforgettable

words, of those kisses, again thrust themselves into my soul. It was

pleasant to me to think that Zinaída could not, nevertheless, fail to do

justice to my decision, to my heroism.... “Others are better for her

than I,”--I thought:--“so be it! On the other hand, the others only say

what they will do, but I have done it! And what else am I capable of

doing for her?”--My imagination began to ferment. I began to picture to

myself how I would save her from the hands of enemies; how, all bathed

in blood, I would wrest her out of prison; how I would die at her feet.

I recalled a picture which hung in our drawing-room of Malek-Adel

carrying off Matilda--and thereupon became engrossed in the appearance

of a big, speckled woodpecker which was busily ascending the slender

trunk of a birch-tree, and uneasily peering out from behind it, now on

the right, now on the left, like a musician from behind the neck of his

bass-viol.

Then I began to sing: “Not the white snows,”--and ran off into the

romance which was well known at that period, “I will await thee when the

playful breeze”; then I began to recite aloud Ermák’s invocation to the

stars in Khomyakóff’s tragedy; I tried to compose something in a

sentimental vein; I even thought out the line wherewith the whole poem

was to conclude: “Oh, Zinaída! Zinaída!”--But it came to nothing.

Meanwhile, dinner-time was approaching. I descended into the valley; a

narrow, sandy path wound through it and led toward the town. I strolled

along that path.... The dull trampling of horses’ hoofs resounded behind

me. I glanced round, involuntarily came to a standstill and pulled off

my cap. I beheld my father and Zinaída. They were riding side by side.

My father was saying something to her, bending his whole body toward

her, and resting his hand on the neck of her horse; he was smiling.

Zinaída was listening to him in silence, with her eyes severely downcast

and lips compressed. At first I saw only them; it was not until several

moments later that Byelovzóroff made his appearance from round a turn in

the valley, dressed in hussar uniform with pelisse, and mounted on a

foam-flecked black horse. The good steed was tossing his head, snorting

and curvetting; the rider was both reining him in and spurring him on.

I stepped aside. My father gathered up his reins and moved away from

Zinaída; she slowly raised her eyes to his--and both set off at a

gallop.... Byelovzóroff dashed headlong after them with clanking sword.

“He is as red as a crab,”--I thought,--“and she.... Why is she so pale?

She has been riding the whole morning--and yet she is pale?”

I redoubled my pace and managed to reach home just before dinner. My

father was already sitting, re-dressed, well-washed and fresh, beside my

mother’s arm-chair, and reading aloud to her in his even, sonorous

voice, the feuilleton of the _Journal des Débats_; but my mother was

listening to him inattentively and, on catching sight of me, inquired

where I had been all day, adding, that she did not like to have me

prowling about God only knew where and God only knew with whom. “But I

have been walking alone,”--I was on the point of replying; but I glanced

at my father and for some reason or other held my peace.

During the course of the next five or six days I hardly saw Zinaída; she

gave it out that she was ill, which did not, however, prevent the

habitual visitors from presenting themselves at the wing--“to take their

turn in attendance,”--as they expressed it;--all except Maidánoff, who

immediately became dispirited as soon as he had no opportunity to go

into raptures. Byelovzóroff sat morosely in a corner, all tightly

buttoned up and red in the face; on Count Malévsky’s delicate visage

hovered constantly a sort of evil smile; he really had fallen into

disfavour with Zinaída and listened with particular pains to the old

Princess, and drove with her to the Governor-General’s in a hired

carriage. But this trip proved unsuccessful and even resulted in an

unpleasantness for Malévsky: he was reminded of some row with certain

Putéisk officers, and was compelled, in self-justification, to say that

he was inexperienced at the time. Lúshin came twice a day, but did not

remain long. I was somewhat afraid of him after our last explanation

and, at the same time, I felt a sincere attachment for him. One day he

went for a stroll with me in the Neskútchny Park, was very good-natured

and amiable, imparted to me the names and properties of various plants

and flowers, and suddenly exclaimed--without rhyme or reason, as the

saying is--as he smote himself on the brow: “And I, like a fool, thought

she was a coquette! Evidently, it is sweet to sacrifice one’s self--for

some people!”

“What do you mean to say by that?”--I asked.

“I don’t mean to say anything to you,”--returned Lúshin, abruptly.

Zinaída avoided me; my appearance--I could not but perceive the

fact--produced an unpleasant impression on her. She involuntarily turned

away from me ... involuntarily; that was what was bitter, that was what

broke my heart! But there was no help for it and I tried to keep out of

her sight and only stand guard over her from a distance, in which I was

not always successful. As before, something incomprehensible was taking

place with her; her face had become different--she was altogether a

different person. I was particularly struck by the change which had

taken place in her on a certain warm, tranquil evening. I was sitting on

a low bench under a wide-spreading elder-bush; I loved that little nook;

the window of Zinaída’s chamber was visible thence. I was sitting there;

over my head, in the darkened foliage, a tiny bird was rummaging fussily

about; a great cat with outstretched back had stolen into the garden,

and the first beetles were booming heavily in the air, which was still

transparent although no longer light. I sat there and stared at the

window, and waited to see whether some one would not open it: and, in

fact, it did open, and Zinaída made her appearance in it. She wore a

white gown, and she herself--her face, her shoulders and her hands--was

pale to whiteness. She remained for a long time motionless, and for a

long time stared, without moving, straight in front of her from beneath

her contracted brows. I did not recognise that look in her. Then she

clasped her hands very, very tightly, raised them to her lips, to her

forehead--and suddenly, unlocking her fingers, pushed her hair away from

her ears, shook it back and, throwing her head downward from above with

a certain decisiveness, she shut the window with a bang.

Two days later she met me in the park. I tried to step aside, but she

stopped me.

“Give me your hand”--she said to me, with her former affection.--“It is

a long time since you and I have had a chat.”

I looked at her; her eyes were beaming softly and her face was smiling,

as though athwart a mist.

“Are you still ailing?”--I asked her.

“No, everything has passed off now,”--she replied, breaking off a small,

red rose.--“I am a little tired, but that will pass off also.”

“And will you be once more the same as you used to be?”--I queried.

Zinaída raised the rose to her face, and it seemed to me as though the

reflection of the brilliant petals fell upon her cheeks.--“Have I

changed?”--she asked me.

“Yes, you have changed,”--I replied in a low voice.

“I was cold toward you,--I know that,”--began Zinaída;--“but you must

not pay any heed to that.... I could not do otherwise.... Come, what’s

the use of talking about that?”

“You do not want me to love you--that’s what!” I exclaimed gloomily,

with involuntary impetuosity.

“Yes, love me, but not as before.”

“How then?”

“Let us be friends,--that is how!”--Zinaída allowed me to smell of the

rose.--“Listen; I am much older than you, you know--I might be your

aunt, really; well, if not your aunt, then your elder sister. While

you....”

“I am a child to you,”--I interrupted her.

“Well, yes, you are a child, but a dear, good, clever child, of whom I

am very fond. Do you know what? I will appoint you to the post of my

page from this day forth; and you are not to forget that pages must not

be separated from their mistress. Here is a token of your new dignity

for you,”--she added, sticking the rose into the button-hole of my

round-jacket; “a token of our favour toward you.”

“I have received many favours from you in the past,”--I murmured.

“Ah!”--said Zinaída, and darting a sidelong glance at me.--“What a

memory you have! Well? And I am ready now also....”

And bending toward me, she imprinted on my brow a pure, calm kiss.

I only stared at her--but she turned away and, saying,--“Follow me, my

page,”--walked to the wing. I followed her--and was in a constant state

of bewilderment.--“Is it possible,”--I thought,--“that this gentle,

sensible young girl is that same Zinaída whom I used to know?”--And her

very walk seemed to me more quiet, her whole figure more majestic, more

graceful....

And, my God! with what fresh violence did love flame up within me!

XVI

After dinner the visitors were assembled again in the wing, and the

young Princess came out to them. The whole company was present, in full

force, as on that first evening, never to be forgotten by me: even

Nirmátzky had dragged himself thither. Maidánoff had arrived earlier

than all the rest; he had brought some new verses. The game of forfeits

began again, but this time without the strange sallies, without pranks

and uproar; the gipsy element had vanished. Zinaída gave a new mood to

our gathering. I sat beside her, as a page should. Among other things,

she proposed that the one whose forfeit was drawn should narrate his

dream; but this was not a success. The dreams turned out to be either

uninteresting (Byelovzóroff had dreamed that he had fed his horse on

carp, and that it had a wooden head), or unnatural, fictitious.

Maidánoff regaled us with a complete novel; there were sepulchres and

angels with harps, and burning lights and sounds wafted from afar.

Zinaída did not allow him to finish. “If it is a question of

invention,”--said she,--“then let each one relate something which is

positively made up.”--Byelovzóroff had to speak first.

The young hussar became confused.--“I cannot invent anything!”--he

exclaimed.

“What nonsense!”--interposed Zinaída.--“Come, imagine, for instance,

that you are married, and tell us how you would pass the time with your

wife. Would you lock her up?”

“I would.”

“And would you sit with her yourself?”

“I certainly would sit with her myself.”

“Very good. Well, and what if that bored her, and she betrayed you?”

“I would kill her.”

“Just so. Well, now supposing that I were your wife, what would you do

then?”

Byelovzóroff made no answer for a while.--“I would kill myself....”

Zinaída burst out laughing.--“I see that there’s not much to be got out

of you.”

The second forfeit fell to Zinaída’s share. She raised her eyes to the

ceiling and meditated.--“See here,”--she began at last,--“this is what I

have devised.... Imagine to yourselves a magnificent palace, a summer

night, and a marvellous ball. This ball is given by the young Queen.

Everywhere there are gold, marble, silk, lights, diamonds, flowers, the

smoke of incense--all the whims of luxury.”

“Do you love luxury?”--interrupted Lúshin.

“Luxury is beautiful,”--she returned;--“I love everything that is

beautiful.”

“More than what is fine?”--he asked.

“That is difficult; somehow I don’t understand. Don’t bother me. So

then, there is a magnificent ball. There are many guests, they are all

young, very handsome, brave; all are desperately in love with the

Queen.”

“Are there no women among the guests?”--inquired Malévsky.

“No--or stay--yes, there are.”

“Also very handsome?”

“Charming. But the men are all in love with the Queen. She is tall and

slender; she wears a small gold diadem on her black hair.”

I looked at Zinaída--and at that moment she seemed so far above us, her

white forehead and her impassive eyebrows exhaled so much clear

intelligence and such sovereignty, that I said to myself: “Thou thyself

art that Queen!”

“All throng around her,”--pursued Zinaída;--“all lavish the most

flattering speeches on her.”

“And is she fond of flattery?”--asked Lúshin.

“How intolerable! He is continually interrupting.... Who does not like

flattery?”

“One more final question,”--remarked Malévsky:--“Has the Queen a

husband?”

“I have not thought about that. No, why should she have a husband?”

“Of course,”--assented Malévsky;--“why should she have a husband?”

“Silence!”--exclaimed, in English, Maidánoff, who spoke French badly.

“_Merci_,”--said Zinaída to him.--“So then, the Queen listens to those

speeches, listens to the music, but does not look at a single one of the

guests. Six windows are open from top to bottom, from ceiling to floor,

and behind them are the dark sky with great stars and the dark garden

with huge trees. The Queen gazes into the garden. There, near the trees

is a fountain: it gleams white athwart the gloom--long, as long as a

spectre. The Queen hears the quiet plashing of its waters in the midst

of the conversation and the music. She gazes and thinks: ‘All of you

gentlemen are noble, clever, wealthy; you are all ready to die at my

feet, I rule over you; ... but yonder, by the side of the fountain, by

the side of that plashing water, there is standing and waiting for me

the man whom I love, who rules over me. He wears no rich garments, nor

precious jewels; no one knows him; but he is waiting for me, and is

convinced that I shall come--and I shall come, and there is no power in

existence which can stop me when I wish to go to him and remain with

him and lose myself with him yonder, in the gloom of the park, beneath

the rustling of the trees, beneath the plashing of the fountain....’”

Zinaída ceased speaking.

“Is that an invention?”--asked Malévsky slyly.

Zinaída did not even glance at him.

“But what should we do, gentlemen,”--suddenly spoke up Lúshin,--“if we

were among the guests and knew about that lucky man by the fountain?”

“Stay, stay,”--interposed Zinaída:--“I myself will tell you what each

one of you would do. You, Byelovzóroff, would challenge him to a duel;

you, Maidánoff, would write an epigram on him.... But no--you do not

know how to write epigrams; you would compose a long iambic poem on him,

after the style of Barbier, and would insert your production in the

_Telegraph_. You, Nirmátzky, would borrow from him ... no, you would

lend him money on interest; you, doctor....” She paused.... “I really do

not know about you,--what you would do.”

“In my capacity of Court-physician,” replied Lúshin, “I would advise the

Queen not to give balls when she did not feel in the mood for

guests....”

“Perhaps you would be in the right. And you, Count?”

“And I?”--repeated Malévsky, with an evil smile.

“And you would offer him some poisoned sugar-plums.”

Malévsky’s face writhed a little and assumed for a moment a Jewish

expression; but he immediately burst into a guffaw.

“As for you, M’sieu Voldemar....” went on Zinaída,--“but enough of this;

let us play at some other game.”

“M’sieu Voldemar, in his capacity of page to the Queen, would hold up

her train when she ran off into the park,”--remarked Malévsky viciously.

I flared up, but Zinaída swiftly laid her hand on my shoulder and

rising, said in a slightly tremulous voice:--“I have never given Your

Radiance the right to be insolent, and therefore I beg that you will

withdraw.”--She pointed him to the door.

“Have mercy, Princess,”--mumbled Malévsky, turning pale all over.

“The Princess is right,”--exclaimed Byelovzóroff, rising to his feet

also.

“By God! I never in the least expected this,”--went on Malévsky:--“I

think there was nothing in my words which.... I had no intention of

offending you.... Forgive me.”

Zinaída surveyed him with a cold glance, and smiled coldly.--“Remain, if

you like,”--she said, with a careless wave of her hand.--“M’sieu

Voldemar and I have taken offence without cause. You find it merry to

jest.... I wish you well.”

“Forgive me,”--repeated Malévsky once more; and I, recalling Zinaída’s

movement, thought again that a real queen could not have ordered an

insolent man out of the room with more majesty.

The game of forfeits did not continue long after this little scene; all

felt somewhat awkward, not so much in consequence of the scene itself as

from another, not entirely defined, but oppressive sensation. No one

alluded to it, but each one was conscious of its existence within

himself and in his neighbour. Maidánoff recited to us all his poems--and

Malévsky lauded them with exaggerated warmth.

“How hard he is trying to appear amiable now,”--Lúshin whispered to me.

We soon dispersed. Zinaída had suddenly grown pensive; the old Princess

sent word that she had a headache; Nirmátzky began to complain of his

rheumatism....

For a long time I could not get to sleep; Zinaída’s narrative had

impressed me.--“Is it possible that it contains a hint?”--I asked

myself:--“and at whom was she hinting? And if there really is some one

to hint about ... what must I decide to do? No, no, it cannot be,”--I

whispered, turning over from one burning cheek to the other.... But I

called to mind the expression of Zinaída’s face during her narration....

I called to mind the exclamation which had broken from Lúshin in the

Neskútchny Park, the sudden changes in her treatment of me--and lost

myself in conjectures. “Who is he?” Those three words seemed to stand in

front of my eyes, outlined in the darkness; a low-lying, ominous cloud

seemed to be hanging over me--and I felt its pressure--and waited every

moment for it to burst. I had grown used to many things of late; I had

seen many things at the Zasyékins’; their disorderliness, tallow

candle-ends, broken knives and forks, gloomy Vonifáty, the shabby maids,

the manners of the old Princess herself,--all that strange life no

longer surprised me.... But to that which I now dimly felt in Zinaída I

could not get used.... “An adventuress,”--my mother had one day said

concerning her. An adventuress--she, my idol, my divinity! That

appellation seared me; I tried to escape from it by burrowing into my

pillow; I raged--and at the same time, to what would not I have agreed,

what would not I have given, if only I might be that happy mortal by the

fountain!...

My blood grew hot and seethed within me. “A garden ... a fountain,” ...

I thought.... “I will go into the garden.” I dressed myself quickly and

slipped out of the house. The night was dark, the trees were barely

whispering; a quiet chill was descending from the sky, an odour of

fennel was wafted from the vegetable-garden. I made the round of all the

alleys; the light sound of my footsteps both disconcerted me and gave me

courage; I halted, waiting and listening to hear how my heart was

beating quickly and violently. At last I approached the fence and leaned

against a slender post. All at once--or was it only my imagination?--a

woman’s figure flitted past a few paces distant from me.... I strained

my eyes intently on the darkness; I held my breath. What was this? Was

it footsteps that I heard or was it the thumping of my heart

again?--“Who is here?”--I stammered in barely audible tones. What was

that again? A suppressed laugh?... or a rustling in the leaves?... or a

sigh close to my very ear? I was terrified.... “Who is here?”--I

repeated, in a still lower voice.

The breeze began to flutter for a moment; a fiery band flashed across

the sky; a star shot down.--“Is it Zinaída?”--I tried to ask, but the

sound died on my lips. And suddenly everything became profoundly silent

all around, as often happens in the middle of the night.... Even the

katydids ceased to shrill in the trees; only a window rattled somewhere.

I stood and stood, then returned to my chamber, to my cold bed. I felt a

strange agitation--exactly as though I had gone to a tryst, and had

remained alone, and had passed by some one else’s happiness.

XVII

The next day I caught only a glimpse of Zinaída; she drove away

somewhere with the old Princess in a hired carriage. On the other hand,

I saw Lúshin--who, however, barely deigned to bestow a greeting on

me--and Malévsky. The young Count grinned and entered into conversation

with me in friendly wise. Among all the visitors to the wing he alone

had managed to effect an entrance to our house, and my mother had taken

a fancy to him. My father did not favour him and treated him politely to

the point of insult.

“Ah, _monsieur le page_,”--began Malévsky,--“I am very glad to meet you.

What is your beauteous queen doing?”

His fresh, handsome face was so repulsive to me at that moment, and he

looked at me with such a scornfully-playful stare, that I made him no

answer whatsoever.

“Are you still in a bad humour?”--he went on.--“There is no occasion for

it. It was not I, you know, who called you a page; and pages are chiefly

with queens. But permit me to observe to you that you are fulfilling

your duties badly.”

“How so?”

“Pages ought to be inseparable from their sovereigns; pages ought to

know everything that they do; they ought even to watch over them,”--he

added, lowering his voice,--“day and night.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“What do I mean? I think I have expressed myself plainly. Day--and

night. It does not matter so much about the day; by day it is light and

there are people about; but by night--that’s exactly the time to expect

a catastrophe. I advise you not to sleep o’nights and to watch, watch

with all your might. Remember--in a garden, by night, near the

fountain--that’s where you must keep guard. You will thank me for this.”

Malévsky laughed and turned his back on me. He did not, in all

probability, attribute any special importance to what he had said to me;

he bore the reputation of being a capital hand at mystification, and was

renowned for his cleverness in fooling people at the masquerades, in

which that almost unconscious disposition to lie, wherewith his whole

being was permeated, greatly aided him.... He had merely wished to tease

me; but every word of his trickled like poison through all my

veins.--The blood flew to my head.

“Ah! so that’s it!”--I said to myself:--“good! So it was not for nothing

that I felt drawn to the garden! That shall not be!” I exclaimed,

smiting myself on the breast with my fist; although I really did not

know what it was that I was determined not to permit.--“Whether Malévsky

himself comes into the garden,”--I thought (perhaps he had blurted out a

secret; he was insolent enough for that),--“or some one else,”--(the

fence of our vegetable-garden was very low and it cost no effort to

climb over it)--“at any rate, it will be all the worse for the person

whom I catch! I would not advise any one to encounter me! I’ll show the

whole world and her, the traitress,”--(I actually called her a

traitress)--“that I know how to avenge myself!”

I returned to my own room, took out of my writing-table a recently

purchased English knife, felt of the sharp blade, and, knitting my

brows, thrust it into my pocket with a cold and concentrated decision,

exactly as though it was nothing remarkable for me to do such deeds, and

this was not the first occasion. My heart swelled angrily within me and

grew stony; I did not unbend my brows until nightfall and did not relax

my lips, and kept striding back and forth, clutching the knife which had

grown warm in my pocket, and preparing myself in advance for something

terrible. These new, unprecedented emotions so engrossed and even

cheered me, that I thought very little about Zinaída herself. There kept

constantly flitting through my head Aleko, the young gipsy:[6]--“Where

art thou going, handsome youth?--Lie down....” and then: “Thou’rt all

with blood bespattered!... Oh, what is’t that thou hast done?...

Nothing!” With what a harsh smile I repeated that: that “Nothing!”

My father was not at home; but my mother, who for some time past had

been in a state of almost constant, dull irritation, noticed my baleful

aspect at supper, and said to me:--“What art thou sulking at, like a

mouse at groats?”--I merely smiled patronisingly at her by way of reply

and thought to myself: “If they only knew!”--The clock struck eleven; I

went to my own room but did not undress; I was waiting for midnight; at

last it struck.--“’Tis time!”--I hissed between my teeth, and buttoning

my coat to the throat and even turning up my sleeves I betook myself to

the garden.

I had selected a place beforehand where I meant to stand on guard. At

the end of the garden, at the spot where the fence, which separated our

property from the Zasyékins’, abutted on the party-wall, grew a solitary

spruce-tree. Standing beneath its low, thick branches, I could see well,

as far as the nocturnal gloom permitted, all that went on around; there

also meandered a path which always seemed to me mysterious; like a

serpent it wound under the fence, which at that point bore traces of

clambering feet, and led to an arbour of dense acacias. I reached the

spruce-tree, leaned against its trunk and began my watch.

The night was as tranquil as the preceding one had been; but there were

fewer storm-clouds in the sky, and the outlines of the bushes, even of

the tall flowers, were more plainly discernible. The first moments of

waiting were wearisome, almost terrible. I had made up my mind to

everything; I was merely considering how I ought to act. Ought I to

thunder out: “Who goes there? Halt! Confess--or die!”--or simply

smite.... Every sound, every noise and rustling seemed to me

significant, unusual.... I made ready.... I bent forward.... But half an

hour, an hour, elapsed; my blood quieted down and turned cold; the

consciousness that I was doing all this in vain, that I was even

somewhat ridiculous, that Malévsky had been making fun of me, began to

steal into my soul. I abandoned my ambush and made the round of the

entire garden. As though expressly, not the slightest sound was to be

heard anywhere; everything was at rest; even our dog was asleep, curled

up in a ball at the gate. I climbed up on the ruin of the hothouse,

beheld before me the distant plain, recalled my meeting with Zinaída,

and became immersed in meditation....

I started.... I thought I heard the creak of an opening door, then the

light crackling of a broken twig. In two bounds I had descended from

the ruin--and stood petrified on the spot. Swift, light but cautious

footsteps were plainly audible in the garden. They were coming toward

me. “Here he is.... Here he is, at last!”--darted through my heart. I

convulsively jerked the knife out of my pocket, convulsively opened

it--red sparks whirled before my eyes, the hair stood up on my head with

fright and wrath.... The steps were coming straight toward me--I bent

over, and went to meet them.... A man made his appearance.... My God! It

was my father!

I recognised him instantly, although he was all enveloped in a dark

cloak,--and had pulled his hat down over his face. He went past me on

tiptoe. He did not notice me although nothing concealed me; but I had so

contracted myself and shrunk together that I think I must have been on a

level with the ground. The jealous Othello, prepared to murder, had

suddenly been converted into the school-boy.... I was so frightened by

the unexpected apparition of my father that I did not even take note, at

first, in what direction he was going and where he had disappeared. I

merely straightened up at the moment and thought: “Why is my father

walking in the garden by night?”--when everything around had relapsed

into silence. In my alarm I had dropped my knife in the grass, but I did

not even try to find it; I felt very much ashamed. I became sobered on

the instant. But as I wended my way home, I stepped up to my little

bench under the elder-bush and cast a glance at the little window of

Zinaída’s chamber. The small, somewhat curved panes of the little window

gleamed dully blue in the faint light which fell from the night sky.

Suddenly their colour began to undergo a change.... Behind them--I saw

it, saw it clearly,--a whitish shade was lowered, descended to the

sill,--and there remained motionless.

“What is the meaning of that?”--I said aloud, almost involuntarily, when

I again found myself in my own room.--“Was it a dream, an accident,

or....” The surmises which suddenly came into my head were so new and

strange that I dared not even yield to them.

XVIII

I rose in the morning with a headache. My agitation of the night before

had vanished. It had been replaced by an oppressive perplexity and a

certain, hitherto unknown sadness,--exactly as though something had died

in me.

“What makes you look like a rabbit which has had half of its brain

removed?”--said Lúshin, who happened to meet me. At breakfast I kept

casting covert glances now at my father, now at my mother; he was calm,

as usual; she, as usual, was secretly irritated. I waited to see

whether my father would address me in a friendly way, as he sometimes

did.... But he did not even caress me with his cold, everyday

affection.--“Shall I tell Zinaída all?”--I thought.... “For it makes no

difference now--everything is over between us.” I went to her, but I not

only did not tell her anything,--I did not even get a chance to talk to

her as I would have liked. The old Princess’s son, a cadet aged twelve,

had come from Petersburg to spend his vacation with her; Zinaída

immediately confided her brother to me.--“Here, my dear Volódya,”--said

she (she called me so for the first time), “is a comrade for you. His

name is Volódya also. Pray, like him; he’s a wild little fellow still,

but he has a good heart. Show him Neskútchny Park, walk with him, take

him under your protection. You will do that, will you not? You, too, are

such a good fellow!”--She laid both hands affectionately on my

shoulder--and I was reduced to utter confusion. The arrival of that boy

turned me into a boy. I stared in silence at the cadet, who riveted his

eyes in corresponding silence on me. Zinaída burst out laughing and

pushed us toward each other.--“Come, embrace, children!”--We

embraced.--“I’ll take you into the garden if you wish,--shall I?”--I

asked the cadet.

“Certainly, sir,”--he replied, in a hoarse, genuine cadet voice. Again

Zinaída indulged in a burst of laughter.... I managed to notice that

never before had she had such charming colour in her face. The cadet and

I went off together. In our garden stood an old swing. I seated him on

the thin little board and began to swing him. He sat motionless in his

new little uniform of thick cloth with broad gold galloon, and clung

tightly to the ropes.

“You had better unhook your collar,”--I said to him.

“Never mind, sir,[7] we are used to it, sir,”--he said, and cleared his

throat.

He resembled his sister; his eyes were particularly suggestive of her.

It was pleasant to me to be of service to him; and, at the same time,

that aching pain kept quietly gnawing at my heart. “Now I really am a

child,” I thought; “but last night....” I remembered where I had dropped

my knife and found it. The cadet asked me to lend it to him, plucked a

thick stalk of lovage, cut a whistle from it, and began to pipe. Othello

piped also.

But in the evening, on the other hand, how he did weep, that same

Othello, over Zinaída’s hands when, having sought him out in a corner of

the garden, she asked him what made him so melancholy. My tears streamed

with such violence that she was frightened.--“What is the matter with

you? What is the matter with you, Volódya?”--she kept repeating, and

seeing that I made her no reply, she took it into her head to kiss my

wet cheek. But I turned away from her and whispered through my sobs:--“I

know everything: why have you trifled with me?... Why did you want my

love?”

“I am to blame toward you, Volódya” ... said Zinaída.--“Akh, I am very

much to blame” ... she said, and clenched her hands.--“How much evil,

dark, sinful, there is in me!... But I am not trifling with you now, I

love you--you do not suspect why and how.... But what is it you know?”

What could I say to her? She stood before me and gazed at me--and I

belonged to her wholly, from head to foot, as soon as she looked at

me.... A quarter of an hour later I was running a race with the cadet

and Zinaída; I was not weeping; I was laughing, although my swollen

eyelids dropped tears from laughing; on my neck, in place of a tie, was

bound a ribbon of Zinaída’s, and I shouted with joy when I succeeded in

seizing her round the waist. She did with me whatsoever she would.

XIX

I should be hard put to it, if I were made to narrate in detail all that

went on within me in the course of the week which followed my

unsuccessful nocturnal expedition. It was a strange, feverish time, a

sort of chaos in which the most opposite emotions, thoughts, suspicions,

hopes, joys, and sufferings revolved in a whirlwind; I was afraid to

look into myself, if a sixteen-year-old can look into himself; I was

afraid to account to myself for anything whatsoever; I simply made haste

to live through the day until the evening; on the other hand, at night I

slept ... childish giddiness helped me. I did not want to know whether I

was beloved, and would not admit to myself that I was not beloved; I

shunned my father--but could not shun Zinaída.... I burned as with fire

in her presence, ... but what was the use of my knowing what sort of

fire it was wherewith I burned and melted--seeing that it was sweet to

me to burn and melt! I surrendered myself entirely to my impressions,

and dealt artfully with myself, turned away from my memories and shut my

eyes to that of which I had a presentiment in the future.... This

anguish probably would not have continued long ... a thunder-clap put an

instantaneous end to everything and hurled me into a new course.

On returning home one day to dinner from a rather long walk, I learned

with surprise that I was to dine alone; that my father had gone away,

while my mother was ill, did not wish to dine and had shut herself up in

her bedroom. From the footmen’s faces I divined that something unusual

had taken place.... I dared not interrogate them, but I had a friend,

the young butler Philípp, who was passionately fond of poetry and an

artist on the guitar; I applied to him. From him I learned that a

frightful scene had taken place between my father and mother (for in the

maids’ room everything was audible, to the last word; a great deal had

been said in French, but the maid Másha had lived for five years with a

dressmaker from Paris and understood it all); that my mother had accused

my father of infidelity, of being intimate with the young lady our

neighbour; that my father had first defended himself, then had flared up

and in his turn had made some harsh remark “seemingly about her age,”

which had set my mother to crying; that my mother had also referred to a

note of hand, which appeared to have been given to the old Princess, and

expressed herself very vilely about her, and about the young lady as

well; and that then my father had threatened her.--“And the whole

trouble arose,”--pursued Philípp, “out of an anonymous letter; but who

wrote it no one knows; otherwise there was no reason why this affair

should have come out.”

“But has there been anything?”--I enunciated with difficulty, while my

hands and feet turned cold, and something began to quiver in the very

depths of my breast.

Philípp winked significantly.--“There has. You can’t conceal such

doings, cautious as your papa has been in this case;--still, what

possessed him, for example, to hire a carriage, or to ... for you can’t

get along without people there also.”

I dismissed Philípp, and flung myself down on my bed. I did not sob, I

did not give myself up to despair; I did not ask myself when and how all

this had taken place; I was not surprised that I had not guessed it

sooner, long before--I did not even murmur against my father.... That

which I had learned was beyond my strength; this sudden discovery had

crushed me.... All was over. All my flowers had been plucked up at one

blow and lay strewn around me, scattered and trampled under foot.

On the following day my mother announced that she was going to remove to

town. My father went into her bedroom in the morning and sat there a

long time alone with her. No one heard what he said to her, but my

mother did not weep any more; she calmed down and asked for something to

eat, but did not show herself and did not alter her intention. I

remember that I wandered about all day long, but did not go into the

garden and did not glance even once at the wing--and in the evening I

was the witness of an amazing occurrence; my father took Count Malévsky

by the arm and led him out of the hall into the anteroom and, in the

presence of a lackey, said coldly to him: “Several days ago Your

Radiance was shown the door in a certain house. I shall not enter into

explanations with you now, but I have the honour to inform you that if

you come to my house again I shall fling you through the window. I don’t

like your handwriting.” The Count bowed, set his teeth, shrank together,

and disappeared.

Preparations began for removing to town, on the Arbát,[8] where our

house was situated. Probably my father himself no longer cared to remain

in the villa; but it was evident that he had succeeded in persuading my

mother not to make a row. Everything was done quietly, without haste; my

mother even sent her compliments to the old Princess and expressed her

regret that, owing to ill-health, she would be unable to see her before

her departure. I prowled about like a crazy person, and desired but one

thing,--that everything might come to an end as speedily as possible.

One thought never quitted my head: how could she, a young girl,--well,

and a princess into the bargain,--bring herself to such a step, knowing

that my father was not a free man while she had the possibility of

marrying Byelovzóroff at least, for example? What had she hoped for?

How was it that she had not been afraid to ruin her whole

future?--“Yes,”--I thought,--“that’s what love is,--that is

passion,--that is devotion,” ... and I recalled Lúshin’s words to me:

“Self-sacrifice is sweet--for some people.” Once I happened to catch

sight of a white spot in one of the windows of the wing.... “Can that be

Zinaída’s face?”--I thought; ... and it really was her face. I could not

hold out. I could not part from her without bidding her a last farewell.

I seized a convenient moment and betook myself to the wing.

In the drawing-room the old Princess received me with her customary,

slovenly-careless greeting.

“What has made your folks uneasy so early, my dear fellow?”--she said,

stuffing snuff up both her nostrils. I looked at her, and a weight was

removed from my heart. The word “note of hand” uttered by Philípp

tormented me. She suspected nothing ... so it seemed to me then, at

least. Zinaída made her appearance from the adjoining room in a black

gown, pale, with hair out of curl; she silently took me by the hand and

led me away to her room.

“I heard your voice,”--she began,--“and came out at once. And did you

find it so easy to desert us, naughty boy?”

“I have come to take leave of you, Princess,”--I replied,--“probably

forever. You may have heard we are going away.”

Zinaída gazed intently at me.

“Yes, I have heard. Thank you for coming. I was beginning to think that

I should not see you.--Think kindly of me. I have sometimes tormented

you; but nevertheless I am not the sort of person you think I am.”

She turned away and leaned against the window-casing.

“Really, I am not that sort of person. I know that you have a bad

opinion of me.”

“I?”

“Yes, you ... you.”

“I?”--I repeated sorrowfully, and my heart began to quiver as of old,

beneath the influence of the irresistible, inexpressible witchery.--“I?

Believe me, Zinaída Alexándrovna, whatever you may have done, however

you may have tormented me, I shall love and adore you until the end of

my life.”

She turned swiftly toward me and opening her arms widely, she clasped my

head, and kissed me heartily and warmly. God knows whom that long,

farewell kiss was seeking, but I eagerly tasted its sweetness. I knew

that it would never more be repeated.--“Farewell, farewell!” I kept

saying....

She wrenched herself away and left the room. And I withdrew also. I am

unable to describe the feeling with which I retired. I should not wish

ever to have it repeated; but I should consider myself unhappy if I had

never experienced it.

We removed to town. I did not speedily detach myself from the past, I

did not speedily take up my work. My wound healed slowly; but I really

had no evil feeling toward my father. On the contrary, he seemed to have

gained in stature in my eyes ... let the psychologists explain this

contradiction as best they may. One day I was walking along the

boulevard when, to my indescribable joy, I encountered Lúshin. I liked

him for his straightforward, sincere character; and, moreover, he was

dear to me in virtue of the memories which he awakened in me. I rushed

at him.

“Aha!”--he said, with a scowl.--“Is it you, young man? Come, let me have

a look at you. You are still all sallow, and yet there is not the olden

trash in your eyes. You look like a man, not like a lap-dog. That’s

good. Well, and how are you? Are you working?”

I heaved a sigh. I did not wish to lie, and I was ashamed to tell the

truth.

“Well, never mind,”--went on Lúshin,--“don’t be afraid. The principal

thing is to live in normal fashion and not to yield to impulses.

Otherwise, where’s the good? No matter whither the wave bears one--’tis

bad; let a man stand on a stone if need be, but on his own feet. Here I

am croaking ... but Byelovzóroff--have you heard about him?”

“What about him? No.”

“He has disappeared without leaving a trace; they say he has gone to the

Caucasus. A lesson to you, young man. And the whole thing arises from

not knowing how to say good-bye,--to break bonds in time. You, now, seem

to have jumped out successfully. Look out, don’t fall in again.

Farewell.”

“I shall not fall in,”--I thought.... “I shall see her no more.” But I

was fated to see Zinaída once more.

XXI

My father was in the habit of riding on horseback every day; he had a

splendid red-roan English horse, with a long, slender neck and long

legs, indefatigable and vicious. Its name was Electric. No one could

ride it except my father. One day he came to me in a kindly frame of

mind, which had not happened with him for a long time: he was preparing

to ride, and had donned his spurs. I began to entreat him to take me

with him.

“Let us, rather, play at leap-frog,”--replied my father,--“for thou wilt

not be able to keep up with me on thy cob.”

“Yes, I shall; I will put on spurs also.”

“Well, come along.”

We set out. I had a shaggy, black little horse, strong on its feet and

fairly spirited; it had to gallop with all its might, it is true, when

Electric was going at a full trot; but nevertheless I did not fall

behind. I have never seen such a horseman as my father. His seat was so

fine and so carelessly-adroit that the horse under him seemed to be

conscious of it and to take pride in it. We rode the whole length of all

the boulevards, reached the Maidens’ Field,[9] leaped over several

enclosures (at first I was afraid to leap, but my father despised timid

people, and I ceased to be afraid), crossed the Moscow river twice;--and

I was beginning to think that we were on our way homeward, the more so

as my father remarked that my horse was tired, when suddenly he turned

away from me in the direction of the Crimean Ford, and galloped along

the shore.--I dashed after him. When he came on a level with a lofty

pile of old beams which lay heaped together, he sprang nimbly from

Electric, ordered me to alight and, handing me the bridle of his horse,

told me to wait for him on that spot, near the beams; then he turned

into a narrow alley and disappeared. I began to pace back and forth

along the shore, leading the horses after me and scolding Electric, who

as he walked kept incessantly twitching his head, shaking himself,

snorting and neighing; when I stood still, he alternately pawed the

earth with his hoof, and squealed and bit my cob on the neck; in a word,

behaved like a spoiled darling, _pur sang_. My father did not return. A

disagreeable humidity was wafted from the river; a fine rain set in and

mottled the stupid, grey beams, around which I was hovering and of which

I was so heartily tired, with tiny, dark spots. Anxiety took possession

of me, but still my father did not come. A Finnish sentry, also all

grey, with a huge, old-fashioned shako, in the form of a pot, on his

head, and armed with a halberd (why should there be a sentry, I thought,

on the shores of the Moscow river?), approached me, and turning his

elderly, wrinkled face to me, he said:

“What are you doing here with those horses, my little gentleman? Hand

them over to me; I’ll hold them.”

I did not answer him; he asked me for some tobacco. In order to rid

myself of him (moreover, I was tortured by impatience), I advanced a few

paces in the direction in which my father had retreated; then I walked

through the alley to the very end, turned a corner, and came to a

standstill. On the street, forty paces distant from me, in front of the

open window of a small wooden house, with his back to me, stood my

father; he was leaning his breast on the window-sill, while in the

house, half concealed by the curtain, sat a woman in a dark gown talking

with my father: the woman was Zinaída.

I stood rooted to the spot in amazement. I must confess that I had in

nowise expected this. My first impulse was to flee. “My father will

glance round,” I thought,--“and then I am lost.”... But a strange

feeling--a feeling more powerful than curiosity, more powerful even than

jealousy, more powerful than fear,--stopped me. I began to stare, I

tried to hear. My father appeared to be insisting upon something.

Zinaída would not consent. I seem to see her face now--sad, serious,

beautiful, and with an indescribable imprint of adoration, grief, love,

and a sort of despair. She uttered monosyllabic words, did not raise her

eyes, and only smiled--submissively and obstinately. From that smile

alone I recognised my former Zinaída. My father shrugged his shoulders,

and set his hat straight on his head--which was always a sign of

impatience with him.... Then the words became audible: “_Vous devez vous

séparer de cette._”... Zinaída drew herself up and stretched out her

hand.... Suddenly, before my very eyes, an incredible thing came to

pass:--all at once, my father raised the riding-whip, with which he had

been lashing the dust from his coat-tails,--and the sound of a sharp

blow on that arm, which was bare to the elbow, rang out. I could hardly

keep from shrieking, but Zinaída started, gazed in silence at my father,

and slowly raising her arm to her lips, kissed the mark which glowed

scarlet upon it.

My father hurled his riding-whip from him, and running hastily up the

steps of the porch, burst into the house.... Zinaída turned round, and

stretching out her arms, and throwing back her head, she also quitted

the window.

My heart swooning with terror, and with a sort of alarmed perplexity, I

darted backward; and dashing through the alley, and almost letting go of

Electric, I returned to the bank of the river.... I could understand

nothing. I knew that my cold and self-contained father was sometimes

seized by fits of wild fury; and yet I could not in the least comprehend

what I had seen.... But I immediately felt that no matter how long I

might live, it would be impossible for me ever to forget that movement,

Zinaída’s glance and smile; that her image, that new image which had

suddenly been presented to me, had forever imprinted itself on my

memory. I stared stupidly at the river and did not notice that my tears

were flowing. “She is being beaten,”--I thought.... “She is being beaten

... beaten....”

“Come, what ails thee?--Give me my horse!”--rang out my father’s voice

behind me.

I mechanically gave him the bridle. He sprang upon Electric ... the

half-frozen horse reared on his hind legs and leaped forward half a

fathom ... but my father speedily got him under control; he dug his

spurs into his flanks and beat him on the neck with his fist.... “Ekh, I

have no whip,”--he muttered.

I remembered the recent swish through the air and the blow of that same

whip, and shuddered.

“What hast thou done with it?”--I asked my father, after waiting a

little.

My father did not answer me and galloped on. I dashed after him. I was

determined to get a look at his face.

“Didst thou get bored in my absence?”--he said through his teeth.

“A little. But where didst thou drop thy whip?”--I asked him again.

My father shot a swift glance at me.--“I did not drop it,”--he said,--“I

threw it away.”--He reflected for a space and dropped his head ... and

then, for the first and probably for the last time, I saw how much

tenderness and compunction his stern features were capable of

expressing.

He set off again at a gallop, and this time I could not keep up with

him; I reached home a quarter of an hour after him.

“That’s what love is,”--I said to myself again, as I sat at night before

my writing-table, on which copy-books and text-books had already begun

to make their appearance,--“that is what passion is!... How is it

possible not to revolt, how is it possible to endure a blow from any one

whomsoever ... even from the hand that is most dear? But evidently it

can be done if one is in love.... And I ... I imagined....”

The last month had aged me greatly, and my love, with all its agitations

and sufferings, seemed to me like something very petty and childish and

wretched in comparison with that other unknown something at which I

could hardly even guess, and which frightened me like a strange,

beautiful but menacing face that one strives, in vain, to get a good

look at in the semi-darkness....

That night I had a strange and dreadful dream. I thought I was entering

a low, dark room.... My father was standing there, riding-whip in hand,

and stamping his feet; Zinaída was crouching in one corner and had a red

mark, not on her arm, but on her forehead ... and behind the two rose up

Byelovzóroff, all bathed in blood, with his pale lips open, and

wrathfully menacing my father.

Two months later I entered the university, and six months afterward my

father died (of an apoplectic stroke) in Petersburg, whither he had just

removed with my mother and myself. A few days before his death my father

had received a letter from Moscow which had agitated him extremely....

He went to beg something of my mother and, I was told, even wept,--he,

my father! On the very morning of the day on which he had the stroke, he

had begun a letter to me in the French language: “My son,”--he wrote to

me,--“fear the love of women, fear that happiness, that poison....”

After his death my mother sent a very considerable sum of money to

Moscow.

XXII

Four years passed. I had but just left the university, and did not yet

quite know what to do with myself, at what door to knock; in the

meanwhile, I was lounging about without occupation. One fine evening I

encountered Maidánoff in the theatre. He had contrived to marry and

enter the government service; but I found him unchanged. He went into

unnecessary raptures, just as of old, and became low-spirited as

suddenly as ever.

“You know,”--he said to me,--“by the way, that Madame Dólsky is here.”

“What Madame Dólsky?”

“Is it possible that you have forgotten? The former Princess Zasyékin,

with whom we were all in love, you included. At the villa, near

Neskútchny Park, you remember?”

“Did she marry Dólsky?”

“Yes.”

“And is she here in the theatre?”

“No, in Petersburg; she arrived here a few days ago; she is preparing to

go abroad.”

“What sort of a man is her husband?”--I asked.

“A very fine young fellow and wealthy. He’s my comrade in the service, a

Moscow man. You understand--after that scandal ... you must be well

acquainted with all that ...” (Maidánoff smiled significantly), “it was

not easy for her to find a husband; there were consequences ... but with

her brains everything is possible. Go to her; she will be delighted to

see you. She is handsomer than ever.”

Maidánoff gave me Zinaída’s address. She was stopping in the Hotel

Demuth. Old memories began to stir in me.... I promised myself that I

would call upon my former “passion” the next day. But certain affairs

turned up: a week elapsed, and when, at last, I betook myself to the

Hotel Demuth and inquired for Madame Dólsky I learned that she had died

four days previously, almost suddenly, in childbirth.

Something seemed to deal me a blow in the heart. The thought that I

might have seen her but had not, and that I should never see her,--that

bitter thought seized upon me with all the force of irresistible

reproach. “Dead!” I repeated, staring dully at the door-porter, then

quietly made my way to the street and walked away, without knowing

whither. The whole past surged up at one blow and stood before me. And

now this was the way it had ended, this was the goal of that young,

fiery, brilliant life? I thought that--I pictured to myself those dear

features, those eyes, those curls in the narrow box, in the damp,

underground gloom,--right there, not far from me, who was still alive,

and, perchance, only a few paces from my father.... I thought all that,

I strained my imagination, and yet--

From a mouth indifferent I heard the news of death,

And with indifference did I receive it--

resounded through my soul. O youth, youth! Thou carest for nothing: thou

possessest, as it were, all the treasures of the universe; even sorrow

comforts thee, even melancholy becomes thee; thou are self-confident and

audacious; thou sayest: “I alone live--behold!”--But the days speed on

and vanish without a trace and without reckoning, and everything

vanishes in thee, like wax in the sun, like snow.... And perchance the

whole secret of thy charm consists not in the power to do everything,

but in the possibility of thinking that thou wilt do

everything--consists precisely in the fact that thou scatterest to the

winds thy powers which thou hast not understood how to employ in any

other way,--in the fact that each one of us seriously regards himself as

a prodigal, seriously assumes that he has a right to say: “Oh, what

could I not have done, had I not wasted my time!”

And I myself ... what did I hope for, what did I expect, what rich

future did I foresee, when I barely accompanied with a single sigh, with

a single mournful emotion, the spectre of my first love which had arisen

for a brief moment?

And what has come to pass of all for which I hoped? Even now, when the

shades of evening are beginning to close in upon my life, what is there

that has remained for me fresher, more precious than the memory of that

morning spring thunder-storm which sped so swiftly past?

But I calumniate myself without cause. Even then, at that frivolous,

youthful epoch, I did not remain deaf to the sorrowful voice which

responded within me to the triumphant sound which was wafted to me from

beyond the grave. I remember that a few days after I learned of

Zinaída’s death I was present, by my own irresistible longing, at the

death-bed of a poor old woman who lived in the same house with us.

Covered with rags, with a sack under her head, she died heavily and with

difficulty. Her whole life had been passed in a bitter struggle with

daily want; she had seen no joy, she had not tasted the honey of

happiness--it seemed as though she could not have failed to rejoice at

death, at her release, her repose. But nevertheless, as long as her

decrepit body held out, as long as her breast heaved under the icy hand

which was laid upon it, until her last strength deserted her, the old

woman kept crossing herself and whispering:--“O Lord, forgive my

sins,”--and only with the last spark of consciousness did there vanish

from her eyes the expression of fear and horror at her approaching end.

And I remember that there, by the bedside of that poor old woman, I felt

terrified for Zinaída, and felt like praying for her, for my father--and

for myself.

第 一 章 · FIRST LOVE

第一章 · FIRST LOVE