AT tea time the reading came to an end, and the ladies began to talk
among themselves of persons and things unknown to me. This I conceived
them to be doing on purpose to make me conscious (for all their kind
demeanour) of the difference which years and position in the world had
set between them and myself. In general discussions, however, in which I
could take part I sought to atone for my late silence by exhibiting that
extraordinary cleverness and originality to which I felt compelled by
my University uniform. For instance, when the conversation turned upon
country houses, I said that Prince Ivan Ivanovitch had a villa near
Moscow which people came to see even from London and Paris, and that
it contained balustrading which had cost 380,000 roubles. Likewise, I
remarked that the Prince was a very near relation of mine, and that,
when lunching with him the same day, he had invited me to go and spend
the entire summer with him at that villa, but that I had declined, since
I knew the villa well, and had stayed in it more than once, and that all
those balustradings and bridges did not interest me, since I could
not bear ornamental work, especially in the country, where I liked
everything to be wholly countrified. After delivering myself of this
extraordinary and complicated romance, I grew confused, and blushed so
much that every one must have seen that I was lying. Both Varenika, who
was handing me a cup of tea, and Sophia Ivanovna, who had been gazing at
me throughout, turned their heads away, and began to talk of something
else with an expression which I afterwards learnt that good-natured
people assume when a very young man has told them a manifest string of
lies--an expression which says, “Yes, we know he is lying, and why he is
doing it, the poor young fellow!”
What I had said about Prince Ivan Ivanovitch having a country villa, I
had related simply because I could find no other pretext for mentioning
both my relationship to the Prince and the fact that I had been to
luncheon with him that day; yet why I had said all I had about the
balustrading costing 380,000 roubles, and about my having several times
visited the Prince at that villa (I had never once been there--more
especially since the Prince possessed no residences save in Moscow and
Naples, as the Nechludoffs very well knew), I could not possibly tell
you. Neither in childhood nor in adolescence nor in riper years did I
ever remark in myself the vice of falsehood--on the contrary, I was, if
anything, too outspoken and truthful. Yet, during this first stage of
my manhood, I often found myself seized with a strange and unreasonable
tendency to lie in the most desperate fashion. I say advisedly “in the
most desperate fashion,” for the reason that I lied in matters in which
it was the easiest thing in the world to detect me. On the whole I
think that a vain-glorious desire to appear different from what I was,
combined with an impossible hope that the lie would never be found out,
was the chief cause of this extraordinary impulse.
After tea, since the rain had stopped and the after-glow of sunset was
calm and clear, the Princess proposed that we should go and stroll in
the lower garden, and admire her favourite spots there. Following my
rule to be always original, and conceiving that clever people like
myself and the Princess must surely be above the banalities of
politeness, I replied that I could not bear a walk with no object in
view, and that, if I DID walk, I liked to walk alone. I had no idea that
this speech was simply rude; all I thought was that, even as nothing
could be more futile than empty compliments, so nothing could be more
pleasing and original than a little frank brusquerie. However, though
much pleased with my answer, I set out with the rest of the company.
The Princess’s favourite spot of all was at the very bottom of the lower
garden, where a little bridge spanned a narrow piece of swamp. The view
there was very restricted, yet very intimate and pleasing. We are so
accustomed to confound art with nature that, often enough, phenomena of
nature which are never to be met with in pictures seem to us unreal, and
give us the impression that nature is unnatural, or vice versa; whereas
phenomena of nature which occur with too much frequency in pictures seem
to us hackneyed, and views which are to be met with in real life,
but which appear to us too penetrated with a single idea or a single
sentiment, seem to us arabesques. The view from the Princess’s favourite
spot was as follows. On the further side of a small lake, over-grown
with weeds round its edges, rose a steep ascent covered with bushes and
with huge old trees of many shades of green, while, overhanging the lake
at the foot of the ascent, stood an ancient birch tree which, though
partly supported by stout roots implanted in the marshy bank of the
lake, rested its crown upon a tall, straight poplar, and dangled its
curved branches over the smooth surface of the pond--both branches and
the surrounding greenery being reflected therein as in a mirror.
“How lovely!” said the Princess with a nod of her head, and addressing
no one in particular.
“Yes, marvellous!” I replied in my desire to show that had an opinion
of my own on every subject. “Yet somehow it all looks to me so terribly
like a scheme of decoration.”
The Princess went on gazing at the scene as though she had not heard me,
and turning to her sister and Lubov Sergievna at intervals, in order to
point out to them its details--especially a curved, pendent bough, with
its reflection in the water, which particularly pleased her. Sophia
Ivanovna observed to me that it was all very beautiful, and that she and
her sister would sometimes spend hours together at this spot; yet it was
clear that her remarks were meant merely to please the Princess. I have
noticed that people who are gifted with the faculty of loving are
seldom receptive to the beauties of nature. Lubov Sergievna also seemed
enraptured, and asked (among other things), “How does that birch tree
manage to support itself? Has it stood there long?” Yet the next moment
she became absorbed in contemplation of her little dog Susetka, which,
with its stumpy paws pattering to and fro upon the bridge in a mincing
fashion, seemed to say by the expression of its face that this was the
first time it had ever found itself out of doors. As for Dimitri, he
fell to discoursing very logically to his mother on the subject of how
no view can be beautiful of which the horizon is limited. Varenika
alone said nothing. Glancing at her, I saw that she was leaning over
the parapet of the bridge, her profile turned towards me, and gazing
straight in front of her. Something seemed to be interesting her deeply,
or even affecting her, since it was clear that she was oblivious to her
surroundings, and thinking neither of herself nor of the fact that any
one might be regarding her. In the expression of her large eyes there
was nothing but wrapt attention and quiet, concentrated thought, while
her whole attitude seemed so unconstrained and, for all her shortness,
so dignified that once more some recollection or another touched me and
once more I asked myself, “Is IT, then, beginning?” Yet again I assured
myself that I was already in love with Sonetchka, and that Varenika was
only an ordinary girl, the sister of my friend. Though she pleased me at
that moment, I somehow felt a vague desire to show her, by word or deed,
some small unfriendliness.
“I tell you what, Dimitri,” I said to my friend as I moved nearer to
Varenika, so that she might overhear what I was going to say, “it seems
to me that, even if there had been no mosquitos here, there would have
been nothing to commend this spot; whereas “--and here I slapped my
cheek, and in very truth annihilated one of those insects--“it is simply
awful.”
“Then you do not care for nature?” said Varenika without turning her
head.
“I think it a foolish, futile pursuit,” I replied, well satisfied that I
had said something to annoy her, as well as something original. Varenika
only raised her eyebrows a little, with an expression of pity, and went
on gazing in front of her as calmly as before.
I felt vexed with her. Yet, for all that, the rusty, paint-blistered
parapet on which she was leaning, the way in which the dark waters of
the pond reflected the drooping branch of the overhanging birch tree (it
almost seemed to me as though branch and its reflection met), the rising
odour of the swamp, the feeling of crushed mosquito on my cheek, and
her absorbed look and statuesque pose--many times afterwards did these
things recur with unexpected vividness to my recollection.