Lisa had a room to herself on the second story of her mother’s house, a
clean bright little room with a little white bed, with pots of flowers
in the corners and before the windows, a small writing-table, a
book-stand, and a crucifix on the wall. It was always called the
nursery; Lisa had been born in it. When she returned from the church
where she had seen Lavretsky she set everything in her room in order
more carefully than usual, dusted it everywhere, looked through and tied
up with ribbon all her copybooks, and the letters of her girl-friends,
shut up all the drawers, watered the flowers and caressed every blossom
with her hand. All this she did without haste, noiselessly, with a kind
of rapt and gentle solicitude on her face. She stopped at last in the
middle of the room, slowly looked around, and going up to the table
above which the crucifix was hanging, she fell on her knees, dropped her
head on to her clasped hands and remained motionless.
Marfa Timofyevna came in and found her in this position. Lisa did not
observe her entrance. The old lady stepped out on tip-toe and coughed
loudly several times outside the door. Lisa rose quickly and wiped her
eyes, which were bright with unshed tears.
“Ah! I see, you have been setting your cell to rights again,” observed
Marfa Timofyevna, and she bent low over a young rose-tree in a pot; “how
nice it smells!”
Lisa looked thoughtfully at her aunt.
“How strange you should use that word!” she murmured.
“What word, eh?” the old lady returned quickly. “What do you mean? This
is horrible,” she began, suddenly flinging off her cap and sitting down
on Lisa’s little bed; “it is more than I can bear! this is the fourth
day now that I have been boiling over inside; I can’t pretend not to
notice any longer; I can’t see you getting pale, and fading away, and
weeping, I can’t I can’t!”
“Why, what is the matter, auntie?” said Lisa, “it’s nothing.”
“Nothing!” cried Marfa Timofyevna; “you may tell that to others but
not to me. Nothing, who was on her knees just to this minute? and
whose eyelashes are still wet with tears? Nothing, indeed! why, look
at yourself, what have you done with your face, what has become of your
eyes?--Nothing! do you suppose I don’t know all?”
“It will pass off, auntie; give me time.”
“It will pass off, but when? Good God! Merciful Saviour! can you have
loved him like this? why, he’s an old man, Lisa, darling. There, I don’t
dispute he’s a good fellow, no harm in him; but what of that? we are all
good people, the world is not so small, there will be always plenty of
that commodity.”
“I tell you, it will all pass away, it has all passed away already.”
“Listen, Lisa, darling, what I am going to say to you,” Marfa Timofyevna
said suddenly, making Lisa sit beside her, and straightening her hair
and her neckerchief. “It seems to you now in the midst of the worst of it
that nothing can ever heal your sorrow. Ah, my darling, the only thing
that can’t be cured is death. You only say to yourself now: ‘I won’t
give in to it--so there!’ and you will be surprised yourself how soon,
how easily it will pass off. Only have patience.”
“Auntie,” returned Lisa, “it has passed off already, it is all over.”
“Passed! how has it passed? Why, your poor little nose has grown sharp
already and you say it is over. A fine way of getting over it!”
“Yes, it is over, auntie, if you will only try to help me,” Lisa
declared with sudden animation, and she flung herself on Marfa
Timofyevna’s neck. “Dear auntie, be a friend to me, help me, don’t be
angry, understand me”...
“Why, what is it, what is it, my good girl? Don’t terrify me, please; I
shall scream directly; don’t look at me like that; tell me quickly, what
is it?”
“I--I want,” Lisa hid her face on Marfa Timofyevna’s bosom, “I want to
go into a convent,” she articulated faintly.
The old lady almost bounded off the bed.
“Cross yourself, my girl, Lisa, dear, think what you are saying; what
are you thinking of? God have mercy on you!” she stammered at last. “Lie
down, my darling, sleep a little, all this comes from sleeplessness, my
dearie.”
Lisa raised her head, her cheeks were glowing.
“No, auntie,” she said, “don’t speak like that; I have made up my mind,
I prayed, I asked counsel of God; all is at an end, my life with you is
at an end. Such a lesson was not for nothing; and it is not the first
time that I have thought of it. Happiness was not for me; even when I
had hopes of happiness, my heart was always heavy. I knew all my own
sins and those of others, and how papa made our fortune; I know it all.
For all that there must be expiation. I am sorry for you, sorry for
mamma, for Lenotchka; but there is no help; I feel that there is no
living here for me; I have taken leave of all, I have greeted everything
in the house for the last time; something calls to me; I am sick at
heart, I want to hide myself away for ever. Do not hinder me, do not
dissuade me, help me, or else I must go away alone.”
Marfa Timofyevna listened to her niece with horror.
“She is ill, she is raving,” she thought: “we must send for a doctor;
but for which one? Gedeonovsky was praising one the other day; he always
tells lies--but perhaps this time he spoke the truth.” But when she was
convinced that Lisa was not ill, and was not raving, when she constantly
made the same answer to all her expostulations, Marfa Timofyevna was
alarmed and distressed in earnest. “But you don’t know, my darling,”
she began to reason with her, “what a life it is in those convents! Why,
they would feed you, my own, on green hemp oil, and they would put you
in the coarsest linen, and make you go about in the cold; you will never
be able to bear all that, Lisa, darling. All this is Agafya’s doing; she
led you astray. But then you know she began by living and lived for her
own pleasure; you must live, too. At least, let me die in peace, and
then do as you like. And who has ever heard of such a thing, for the
sake of such a--for the sake of a goat’s beard, God forgive us!--for the
sake of a man--to go into a convent! Why, if you are so sick at heart,
go on a pilgrimage, offer prayers to some saint, have a Te Deum sung,
but don’t put the black hood on your head, my dear creature, my good
girl.”
And Marfa Timofyevna wept bitterly.
Lisa comforted her, wiped away her tears and wept herself, but remained
unshaken. In her despair Marfa Timofyevna had recourse to threats: to
tell her mother all about it... but that too was of no avail. Only at
the old lady’s most earnest entreaties Lisa agreed to put off carrying
out her plan for six months. Marfa Timofyevna was obliged to promise
in return that if, within six months, she did not change her mind,
she would herself help her and would do all she could to gain Marya
Dmitrievna’s consent.
In spite of her promise to bury herself in seclusion, at the first
approach of cold weather, Varvara Pavlovna, having provided herself with
funds, removed to Petersburg, where she took a modest but charming set
of apartments, found for her by Panshin; who had left the O-----district
a little before. During the latter part of his residence in O----- he
had completely lost Marya Dmitrievna’s good graces; he had suddenly
given up visiting her and scarcely stirred from Lavriky. Varvara
Pavolvna had enslaved him, literally enslaved him, no other word can
describe her boundless, irresistible, unquestioned sway over him.
Lavretsky spent the winter in Moscow; and in the spring of the
following year the news reached him that Lisa had taken the veil in the
B-----convent, in one of the remote parts of Russia.
Epilogue
Eight years had passed by. Once more the spring had come.... But we will
say a few words first of the fate of Mihalevitch, Panshin, and Madame
Lavretsky--and then take leave of them. Mihalevitch, after long
wanderings, has at last fallen in with exactly the right work for him;
he has received the position of senior superintendent of a government
school. He is very well content with his lot; his pupils adore him,
though they mimick him too. Panshin has gained great advancement in
rank, and already has a directorship in view; he walks with a slight
stoop, caused doubtless by the weight round his neck of the Vladimir
cross which has been conferred on him. The official in him has finally
gained the ascendency over the artist; his still youngish face has grown
yellow, and his hair scanty; he now neither sings nor sketches, but
applies himself in secret to literature; he has written a comedy, in
the style of a “proverb,” and as nowadays all writers have to draw a
portrait of some one or something, he has drawn in it the portrait of
a coquette, and he reads it privately to two or three ladies who look
kindly upon him. He has, however, not entered upon matrimony, though
many excellent opportunities of doing so have presented themselves. For
this Varvara Pavlovna was responsible. As for her, she lives constantly
at Paris, as in former days. Fedor Ivanitch has given her a promissory
note for a large sum, and has so secured immunity from the possibility
of her making a second sudden descent upon him. She has grown older and
stouter, but is still charming and elegant. Every one has his ideal.
Varvara Pavlovna found hers in the dramatic works of M. Dumas Fils.
She diligently frequents the theatres, when consumptive and sentimental
“dames aux camélias” are brought on the stage; to be Madame Doche seems
to her the height of human bliss; she once declared that she did not
desire a better fate for her own daughter. It is to be hoped that fate
will spare Mademoiselle Ada from such happiness; from a rosy-cheeked,
chubby child she has turned into a weak-chested, pale girl; her nerves
are already deranged. The number of Varvara Pavlovna adorers has
diminished, but she still has some; a few she will probably retain to
the end of her days. The most ardent of them in these later days is a
certain Zakurdalo-Skubrinikov, a retired guardsman, a full-bearded man
of thirty-eight, of exceptionally vigorous physique. The French habitués
of Madame Lavretsky’s salon call him “le gros taureau de l’Ukraine;”
Varvara Pavlovna never invites him to her fashionable evening reunions,
but he is in the fullest enjoyment of her favours.
And so--eight years have passed by. Once more the breezes of spring
breathed brightness and rejoicing from the heavens; once more spring
was smiling upon the earth and upon men; once more under her caresses
everything was turning to blossom, to love, to song. The town of
O---- had undergone little change in the course of these eight
years; but Marya Dmitrievna’s house seemed to have grown younger; its
freshly-painted walls gave a bright welcome, and the panes of its open
windows were crimson, shining in the setting sun; from these windows the
light merry sound of ringing young voices and continual laughter floated
into the street; the whole house seemed astir with life and brimming
over with gaiety. The lady of the house herself had long been in her
tomb; Marya Dmitrievna had died two years after Lisa took the veil, and
Marfa Timofyevna had not long survived her niece; they lay side by side
in the cemetery of the town. Nastasya Karpovna too was no more; for
several years the faithful old woman had gone every week to say a
prayer over her friend’s ashes..... Her time had come, and now her bones
too lay in the damp earth. But Marya Dmitreivna’s house had not passed
into stranger’s hands, it had not gone out of her family, the home had
not been broken upon. Lenotchka, transformed into a slim, beautiful
young girl, and her betrothed lover--a fair-haired officer of hussars;
Marya Dmitrievna’s son, who had just been married in Petersburg and had
come with his young wife for the spring to O-----; his wife’s sister, a
school-girl of sixteen, with glowing cheeks and bright eyes; Shurotchka,
grown up and also pretty, made up the youthful household, whose laughter
and talk set the walls of the Kalitins’ house resounding. Everything
in the house was changed, everything was in keeping with its new
inhabitants. Beardless servant lads, grinning and full of fun, had
replaced the sober old servants of former days. Two setter dogs dashed
wildly about and gambolled over the sofas, where the fat Roska had at
one time waddled in solemn dignity. The stables were filled with slender
racers, spirited carriage horses, fiery out-riders with plaited manes,
and riding horses from the Don. The breakfast, dinner, and supper-hours
were all in confusion and disorder; in the words of the neighbours,
“unheard-of arrangements” were made.
On the evening of which we are speaking, the inhabitants of the
Kalitins’ house (the eldest of them, Lenotchka’s betrothed, was only
twenty-four) were engaged in a game, which, though not of a very
complicated nature, was, to judge from their merry laughter, exceedingly
entertaining to them; they were running about the rooms, chasing one
another; the dogs, too, were running and barking, and the canaries,
hanging in cages above the windows, were straining their throats in
rivalry and adding to the general uproar by the shrill trilling of their
piercing notes. At the very height of this deafening merry-making a
mud-bespattered carriage stopped at the gate, and a man of five-and
forty, in a travelling dress, stepped out of it and stood still in
amazement. He stood a little time without stirring, watching the house
with attentive eyes; then went through the little gate in the courtyard,
and slowly mounted the steps. In the hall he met no one; but the door
of a room was suddenly flung open, and out of it rushed Shurotchka,
flushed and hot, and instantly, with a ringing shout, all the young
party in pursuit of her. They stopped short at once and were quiet at
the sight of a stranger; but their clear eyes fixed on him wore the same
friendly expression, and their fresh faces were still smiling as Marya
Dmitreivna’s son went up to the visitor and asked him cordially what he
could do for him.
“I am Lavretsky,” replied the visitor.
He was answered by a shout in chorus--and not because these young people
were greatly delighted at the arrival of a distant, almost forgotten
relation, but simply because they were ready to be delighted and
make noise at every opportunity. They surrounded Lavretsky at once;
Lenotchka, as an old acquaintance, was the first to mention her own
name, and assured him that in a little while she would have certainly
recognised him. She presented him to the rest of the party, calling
each, even her betrothed, by their pet names. They all trooped through
the dining-room into the drawing-room. The walls of both rooms had been
repapered; but the furniture remained the same. Lavretsky recognised the
piano; even the embroidery-frame in the window was just the same, and in
the same position, and it seemed with the same unfinished embroidery
on it, as eight years ago. They made him sit down in a comfortable
arm-chair; all sat down politely in a circle round him. Questions,
exclamations, and anecdotes followed.
“It’s a long time since we have seen you,” observed Lenotchka simply,
“and Varvara Pavlovna we have seen nothing of either.”
“Well, no wonder!” her brother hastened to interpose. “I carried you off
to Petersburg, and Fedor Ivanitch has been living all the time in the
country.”
“Yes, and mamma died soon after then.”
“And Marfa Timofyevna,” observed Shurotchka.
“And Nastasya Karpovna,” added Lenotchka, “and Monsier Lemm.”
“What? is Lemm dead?” inquired Lavretsky.
“Yes,” replied young Kalitin, “he left here for Odessa; they say some
one enticed him there; and there he died.”
“You don’t happen to know,... did he leave any music?”
“I don’t know; not very likely.”
All were silent and looked about them. A slight cloud of melancholy
flitted over all the young faces.
“But Matross is alive,” said Lenotchka suddenly.
“And Gedeonovsky,” added her brother.
At Gedeonovsky’s name a merry laugh broke out at once.
“Yes, he is alive, and as great a liar as ever,” Marya Dmitrievna’s
son continued; “and only fancy, yesterday this madcap”--pointing to the
school-girl, his wife’s sister--“put some pepper in his snuff-box.”
“How he did sneeze!” cried Lenotchka, and again there was a burst of
unrestrained laughter.
“We have had news of Lisa lately,” observed young Kalitin, and again a
hush fell upon all; “there was good news of her; she is recovering her
health a little now.”
“She is still in the same convent?” Lavretsky asked, not without some
effort.
“Yes, still in the same.”
“Does she write to you?”
“No, never; but we get news through other people.”
A sudden and profound silence followed. “A good angel is passing over,”
all were thinking.
“Wouldn’t you like to go into the garden?” said Kalitin, turning to
Lavretsky; “it is very nice now, though we have let it run wild a
little.”
Lavretsky went out into the garden, and the first thing that met his
eyes was the very garden seat on which he had once spent with Lisa those
few blissful moments, never repeated; it had grown black and warped; but
he recognised it, and his soul was filled with that emotion, unequalled
for sweetness and for bitterness--the emotion of keen sorrow for
vanished youth, for the happiness which has once been possessed.
He walked along the avenues with the young people; the lime-trees looked
hardly older or taller in the eight years, but their shade was thicker;
on the other hand, all the bushes had sprung up, the raspberry bushes
had grown strong, the hazels were tangled thicket, and from all sides
rose the fresh scent of the trees and grass and lilac.
“This would be a nice place for Puss-in-the-Corner,” cried Lenotchka
suddenly, as they came upon a small green lawn, surrounded by
lime-trees, “and we are just five, too.”
“Have you forgotten Fedor Ivanitch?” replied her brother,... “or didn’t
you count yourself?”
Lenotchka blushed slightly.
“But would Fedor Ivanitch, at his age-----” she began.
“Please, play your games,” Lavretsky hastened to interpose; “don’t pay
attention to me. I shall be happier myself, when I am sure I am not in
your way. And there’s no need for you to entertain me; we old fellows
have an occupation which you know nothing of yet, and which no amusement
can replace--our memories.”
The young people listened to Lavretsky with polite but rather ironical
respect--as though a teacher were giving them a lesson--and suddenly
they all dispersed, and ran to the lawn; four stood near trees, one in
the middle, and the game began.
And Lavretsky went back into the house, went into the dining-room, drew
near the piano and touched one of the keys; it gave out a faint but
clear sound; on that note had begun the inspired melody with which long
ago on that same happy night Lemm, the dead Lemm, had thrown him into
such transports. Then Lavretsky went into the drawing-room, and for a
long time he did not leave it; in that room where he had so often seen
Lisa, her image rose most vividly before him; he seemed to feel the
traces of her presence round him; but his grief for her was crushing,
not easy to bear; it had none of the peace which comes with death. Lisa
still lived somewhere, hidden and afar; he thought of her as of the
living, but he did not recognize the girl he had once loved in that dim
pale shadow, cloaked in a nun’s dress and encircled in misty clouds
of incense. Lavretsky would not have recognized himself, could he have
looked at himself, as mentally he looked at Lisa. In the course of these
eight years he had passed that turning-point in life, which many never
pass, but without which no one can be a good man to the end; he had
really ceased to think of his own happiness, of his personal aims. He
had grown calm, and--why hide the truth?--he had grown old not only in
face and in body, he had grown old in heart; to keep a young heart up to
old age, as some say, is not only difficult, but almost ridiculous;
he may well be content who has not lost his belief in goodness, his
steadfast will, and his zeal for work. Lavretsky had good reason to
be content; he had become actually an excellent farmer, he had really
learnt to cultivate the land, and his labours were not only for himself;
he had, to the best of his powers, secured on a firm basis the welfare
of his peasants.
Lavretsky went out of the house into the garden, and sat down on the
familiar garden seat. And on this loved spot, facing the house where for
the last time he had vainly stretched out his hand for the enchanted
cup which frothed and sparkled with the golden wine of delight, he, a
solitary homeless wanderer, looked back upon his life, while the joyous
shouts of the younger generation who were already filling his place
floated across the garden to him. His heart was sad, but not weighed
down, nor bitter; much there was to regret, nothing to be ashamed of.
“Play away, be gay, grow strong, vigorous youth!” he thought, and there
was no bitterness in his meditations; “your life is before you, and for
you life will be easier; you have not, as we had, to find out a path for
yourselves, to struggle, to fall, and to rise again in the dark; we had
enough to do to last out--and how many of us did not last out?--but you
need only do your duty, work away, and the blessing of an old man be
with you. For me, after to-day, after these emotions, there remains to
take my leave at last,--and though sadly, without envy, without any dark
feelings, to say, in sight of the end, in sight of God who awaits me:
‘Welcome, lonely old age! burn out, useless life!’”
Lavretsky quietly rose and quietly went away; no one noticed him, no one
detained him; the joyous cries sounded more loudly in the garden
behind the thick green wall of high lime-trees. He took his seat in the
carriage and bade the coachman drive home and not hurry the horses.
“And the end?” perhaps the dissatisfied reader will inquire. “What
became of Lavretsky afterwards, and of Lisa?” But what is there to tell
of people who, though still alive, have withdrawn from the battlefield
of life? They say, Lavretsky visited that remote convent where Lisa had
hidden herself--that he saw her. Crossing over from choir to choir, she
walked close past him, moving with the even, hurried, but meek walk of
a nun; and she did not glance at him; only the eyelashes on the side
towards him quivered a little, only she bent her emaciated face lower,
and the fingers of her clasped hands, entwined with her rosary, were
pressed still closer to one another. What were they both thinking, what
were they feeling? Who can know? who can say? There are such moments
in life, there are such feelings... One can but point to them--and pass
them by.