This conversation greatly perturbed Irene. She tried to assure
herself that it was all nonsense; but, somehow, truth seemed to look
reproachfully at her through Gzhatski’s words. Many disquieting
remembrances came to her mind, and for the first time in her life she
made an effort to see herself as others saw her. Life had certainly,
till now, never required of her any particular activity or decision.
Everything had always arranged itself without trouble. She had lived for
years in the flat in which her father had died, and to which she was so
accustomed. Her maids had served her mechanically, and whenever one had
left, friends or neighbours had immediately recommended another to take
her place, so that Irene had hardly noticed the change. When she had
given parties, she had ordered the supper at a restaurant, the French
manager of which had known exactly what would please her guests.
“Rapportez vous en à moi, Mademoiselle,” he had usually remarked with
confidence; “et vos invités n’auront pas lieu de se plaindre.”
In the same way, her French dressmaker had known exactly what she should
wear, and Irene had relied entirely on the Frenchwoman’s good taste. In
addition, she had really never had time to think out her own dresses,
for, each time she had ordered one, her thoughts had rushed off to the
trousseau she would some day provide for her future daughter; and the
colour and fabric and fashion of all those future dresses, hats, and furs
had engrossed her, for the time being, so completely that there had not
been a moment left for her own immediate attire!
The greatest amount of energy Irene had ever expended had been in
connection with her travels abroad—though, indeed, here also everything
seemed to arrange itself without her guidance. On arriving in a strange
town, she had never been allowed even to wonder for a moment where she
should stay. Having hardly set foot on the railway arrival platform, an
energetic porter had invariably seized all her belongings, passed them on
to some still more energetic commissionaire, and before she had had time
to rub her eyes, she had been packed into an omnibus, and was comfortably
driving off to some hotel. She had often reflected that there were indeed
numberless kind-hearted people in the world. How many of them troubled
themselves to see that she was well dressed, well fed, well housed, etc.!
The money that she gave in exchange for these services seemed to her
a very small matter indeed in comparison to the enormous efforts they
involved.
At one time, she had greatly occupied herself with this thought. Sitting
comfortably in her box at the theatre, she had wondered whether it was
right that the actors should play, sing, and dance for her amusement;
that cab-drivers should freeze for hours outside the theatre doors, on
the chance of driving her home; that the night porter of her house should
get out of bed to let her in—all this for trifling sums of money that
she could never even miss, and that she had received from her father.
Was it not an impossible arrangement of society, by which so many people
worked for one idler? The question had greatly disturbed Irene’s peace
of mind; but just at that time she had been asked to join a society
for providing poor young mothers with layettes for their babies. The
object of this society was pleasing to Irene, and all her disturbing
thoughts had lost themselves in an enormous ardour for knitting babies’
counterpanes. There is scarcely another manual occupation that needs
as little attention as knitting. One can knit a whole counterpane so
mechanically that one has hardly noticed how it happened. And so, Irene
had knitted and knitted during all the long winter evenings, while her
thoughts had rushed from one fancy to another. She had reorganized the
Russian army and fleet; she had thought out schools of a new type, from
which issued the most remarkable, active, energetic people; she had
rebuilt Petrograd; she had planned new railways and laid out a new
network of canals, uniting all Russia’s inland seas.
And all the time, the counterpanes had grown and grown, till at last
Irene had been able proudly to present an enormous number of completed
ones to the society. She had been happy in the thought that if the
workmen of Petrograd provided her with all the necessaries of life, she
in return provided their children with counterpanes. In this way, justice
and an even balance had been restored.
It is true that the society had also imposed on its members the duty of
visiting the mothers. This duty, however, Irene had point blank refused
to take upon herself. It was preposterous, she had thought. What would
happen if she were by chance to arrive somewhere at a moment when a
child was being born? She would hear the mother’s groans and see the
red, wrinkled infant. She did not even know very exactly how it all
happens, and she had shuddered at the very idea of witnessing anything
so nauseating. In general, she had always felt a natural disgust for
everything physical, and had never brought herself to glance without a
shudder at the simplest anatomical design. In the case in point, indeed,
she had preferred to knit ten extra counterpanes rather than see one of
the babies for whom they were destined.
She now remembered also how she had always loved to escape from real
life into the enchanted realms of novels and poems. People in books were
always so charming, and all their thoughts and actions so comprehensible.
They all invariably had a clear, well-defined object in life, and
strove through a few hundred engrossing pages to attain this object.
They were all noble and generous, and their lives were bright and
beautiful. What interesting and delightful moments Irene had passed in
their society! They had made her laugh and cry and suffer and rejoice,
and had entertained her with the brilliancy of their wit. How dull and
colourless real people had appeared beside these heroes and heroines of
fiction. Real people never seemed to know for what purpose they existed,
nor what to do with their lives; their characters were nearly always
illogical and uninteresting; they were married stupidly and aimlessly,
and generally to the wrong people; they just as aimlessly bore children,
and did nothing but reproach them for having exactly the same faults as
themselves; if, however, one of the children who had caused them nothing
but torments and trouble died, they made a terrific fuss, wrung their
hands in despair, and cursed God. How could Irene respect such people?
Ah! if she had met in real life a Prince Andrey, from “Peace and War,”
how passionately she would have loved him! And what an intimate friend
she would have made of Pushkin’s Tatiana! How they would have understood
each other! How much they would have had in common! Irene had often
assured her friends in fun that no man in the world appealed to her as
much as Sherlock Holmes.
Thinking over all this, Irene suddenly, with a shock, realized that
Gzhatski was perfectly right, that she had really never lived, but had
only slumbered and dreamt, and had in this way let her youth slip by.
Having now understood her own illness, was there still time for a
cure, for a return to normal life? Could she renounce her contempt for
humanity? Could she try to love human nature, in spite of its defects?
Could she live in the world, sharing its joys and sorrows? Or was it too
late? Was not Père Etienne, perhaps, persuading her to take the veil just
for that self-same reason? Did not the clever priest, perhaps, regard
her simply as a nervous patient, and was he not possibly trying by every
possible ruse to lure her into a convent as one lures lunatics into an
asylum? The thought was painful.
Gzhatski, in the meantime, having proposed to Irene in jest, knowing
perfectly well that she would refuse, had suddenly, once the proposal was
made and rejected, begun to think seriously about marrying her. He had
for some years past quite given up his old dreams of marriage, but having
during the autumn previous to his Italian journey spent two lonely months
in the country, away from all his friends, alone with an old devoted but
badly trained servant, Gzhatski had often meditated with some sadness
on the failure of his cherished plans, and on the lonely old age that
awaited him. Irene’s innocence and simple-mindedness appealed to him, and
emphatically as he assured her that indifference to wealth and position
was a symptom of disease, this particular symptom was, nevertheless, in
her case, pleasing to him. Her moral purity reminded him of his mother,
though, indeed, one could hardly imagine two more diverse characters:
the one deeply and passionately religious, the other embittered and
indifferent even to her shattered ideals.
Taking advantage of the impression produced on Irene’s mind by the “Life
of Saint Amulfia,” and her resultant disillusionment on the subject
of convents, Gzhatski persuaded her to venture a little out of her
seclusion, and to see something of Roman society. The season was in full
swing. Crowds of English and American tourists were besieging the hotels,
and were being pitilessly fleeced. The Costanzi theatre engaged one
famous singer after another, and great society hostesses vied with each
other in the brilliancy of their receptions. Armies of peasant women and
their children, in picturesque national costumes, wandered down from the
Albanian hills to sell flowers to the _forestieri_ (foreigners). Old Rome
seemed to have grown young again, and basked gaily in the golden spring
sunshine.
Gzhatski took Irene to the Horse Show, organized by the fashionable
“Fox-hunters’ Club.” Fox-hunting, the recreation of the most aristocratic
Roman circles, is a feature of the winter season. The perfect roads
traversing the Campagna, the splendid views, the fresh air, the
invigorating canter across the plain, a little harmless flirtation with
the most elegant of equestriennes, all this is dear to the heart of the
fashionable Roman. As to the foxes, they suffer but little at the hands
of their aristocratic hunters!
“The fox is an old Roman,” the more sincere sportsmen often frankly
admit—“he knows every inch of the Campagna, much better than we do, and
rarely lets himself be caught.”
In answer to any question about the hunt, Roman “High Life” almost
invariably asserts that the day was superb. “At the start, a fox was
raised, but managed to evade the hunters, and finally escaped.”
Evil tongues, indeed, assert that these foxes are mechanical, and are
wound up and started before every hunt! But then—what strange rumours
will not evil tongues invent! The sportsmen are never discouraged, and it
is under their auspices that the annual Horse Show is organized.
On arriving at the Tor di Fiorenza, Irene was greeted by a scene as
picturesque as it was new and unfamiliar to her. The races were held in
a valley between low hills, the obstacles being scattered not only over
the level ground, but also on the grassy slopes. The course, indeed, was
a bewilderingly winding one, up-hill and down-hill, the last and most
difficult barrier being placed at a considerable height, followed by a
steep incline down to the winning-post.
Some of the jockeys were flung over this last barrier, head forwards!
Their riderless horses, taking the leap by themselves, quietly turned
aside and began to regale themselves on the fresh grass, while the
soldiers on guard picked up what was left of the unconscious sportsmen!
There were no seats of any kind provided for the public. The fashionable
onlookers stood about on the grass, or sat on folding stools they had
brought with them; others even, when overtired, seated themselves on
the damp ground. Sometimes, the public pressed so close to the barriers
that they were actually in the way, and one of the judges on horseback
approached, courteously requesting the crowd to stand back. Children,
brought there for some unknown reason, arranged little races and
competitions of their own, and skipped merrily up and down the hills,
to the delight of their parents. The Roman is a tender father, and is
not ashamed of his tenderness. For that matter, the Romans present were
probably in the minority, every possible nationality being represented
in the assemblage. The manner, attire, and general appearance of all
cosmopolitan aristocrats being similar, one could only distinguish the
various nationalities of those present by the accent with which they
spoke French, the language almost universally adopted in Roman society.
Irene studied the animated picture before her with great interest. The
weather was lovely. The recent rains had covered the whole valley with
a carpet of new, green grass, from which peeped, here and there, a shy,
little early field-flower. The air was fragrant with the scent of spring,
and the pink and white bloom of the cherry-trees contrasted strangely
with the solemn darkness of the Roman pines. The gay, elegant crowd
laughed and chatted around Irene, and her glance wandered, with a curious
sense of strangeness, from one face to another. These handsome, well
dressed men, these dainty, fashionable ladies, probably making the Horse
Show an excuse for some rendezvous, seemed to her to belong to some other
world, and to have indeed nothing whatever in common with the ex-nun, as
she, with some bitterness, called herself.