Early in the fifties, there was living in Moscow, in very straitened
circumstances, almost in poverty, the numerous family of the Princes
Osinin. These were real princes--not Tartar-Georgians, but pure-blooded
descendants of Rurik. Their name is often to be met with in our
chronicles under the first grand princes of Moscow, who created a united
Russia. They possessed wide acres and many domains. Many a time they
were rewarded for ‘service and blood and disablement.’ They sat in the
Council of Boyars. One of them even rose to a very high position. But
they fell under the ban of the empire through the plots of enemies ‘on a
charge of witchcraft and evil philtres,’ and they were ruined ‘terribly
and beyond recall.’ They were deprived of their rank, and banished to
remote parts; the Osinins fell and had never risen again, had never
attained to power again. The ban was taken off in time, and they were
even reinstated in their Moscow house and belongings, but it was of no
avail. Their family was impoverished, ‘run to seed’; it did not revive
under Peter, nor under Catherine; and constantly dwindling and growing
humbler, it had by now reckoned private stewards, managers of
wine-shops, and ward police-inspectors among its members. The family of
Osinins, of whom we have made mention, consisted of a husband and wife
and five children. It was living near the Dogs’ Place, in a one-storied
little wooden house, with a striped portico looking on to the street,
green lions on the gates, and all the other pretensions of nobility,
though it could hardly make both ends meet, was constantly in debt at
the green-grocer’s, and often sitting without firewood or candles in the
winter. The prince himself was a dull, indolent man, who had once been a
handsome dandy, but had gone to seed completely. More from regard for
his wife, who had been a maid-of-honour, than from respect for his name,
he had been presented with one of those old-fashioned Moscow posts that
have a small salary, a queer-sounding name, and absolutely no duties
attached. He never meddled in anything, and did nothing but smoke from
morning till night, breathing heavily, and always wrapped in a
dressing-gown. His wife was a sickly irritable woman, for ever worried
over domestic trifles--over getting her children placed in government
schools, and keeping up her Petersburg connections; she could never
accustom herself to her position and her remoteness from the Court.
Litvinov’s father had made acquaintance with the Osinins during his
residence at Moscow, had had occasion to do them some services, and had
once lent them three hundred roubles; and his son often visited them
while he was a student; his lodging happened to be at no great distance
from their house. But he was not drawn to them simply as near
neighbours, nor tempted by their comfortless way of living. He began to
be a frequent visitor at their house after he had fallen in love with
their eldest daughter Irina.
She had then completed her seventeenth year; she had only just left
school, from which her mother withdrew her through a disagreement with
the principal. This disagreement arose from the fact that Irina was to
have delivered at a public function some verses in French, complimentary
to the curator, and just before the performance her place was filled by
another girl, the daughter of a very rich spirit-contractor. The
princess could not stomach this affront; and indeed Irina herself never
forgave the principal for this act of injustice; she had been dreaming
beforehand of how she would rise before the eyes of every one,
attracting universal attention, and would deliver her speech, and how
Moscow would talk about her afterwards!... And, indeed, Moscow would
have talked about her afterwards. She was a tall, slim girl, with a
somewhat hollow chest and narrow unformed shoulders, with a skin of a
dead-white, rare at her age, and pure and smooth as china, with thick
fair hair; there were darker tresses mingled in a very original way with
the light ones. Her features--exquisitely, almost too perfectly,
correct--had not yet quite lost the innocent expression that belongs to
childhood; the languid curves of her lovely neck, and her
smile--half-indifferent, half-weary--betrayed the nervous temperament of
a delicate girl; but in the lines of those fine, faintly-smiling lips,
of that small, falcon, slightly-narrow nose, there was something wilful
and passionate, something dangerous for herself and others. Astounding,
really astounding were her eyes, dark grey with greenish lights,
languishing, almond-shaped as an Egyptian goddess’s, with shining lashes
and bold sweep of eyebrow. There was a strange look in those eyes; they
seemed looking out intently and thoughtfully--looking out from some
unknown depth and distance. At school, Irina had been reputed one of the
best pupils for intelligence and abilities, but of uneven temper, fond
of power, and headstrong; one class-mistress prophesied that her
passions would be her ruin--‘_vos passions vous perdront_’, on the other
hand, another class-mistress censured her for coldness and want of
feeling, and called her ‘_une jeune fille sans cœur_.’ Irina’s
companions thought her proud and reserved: her brothers and sisters
stood a little in awe of her: her mother had no confidence in her: and
her father felt ill at ease when she fastened her mysterious eyes upon
him. But she inspired a feeling of involuntary respect in both her
father and her mother, not so much through her qualities, as from a
peculiar, vague sense of expectations which she had, in some undefined
way, awakened in them.
‘You will see, Praskovya Danilovna,’ said the old prince one day, taking
his pipe out of his mouth, ‘our chit of an Irina will give us all a lift
in the world yet.’
The princess got angry, and told her husband that he made use of ‘_des
expressions insupportables_’; afterwards, however, she fell to musing
over his words, and repeated through her teeth:
‘Well ... and it would be a good thing if we did get a lift.’
Irina enjoyed almost unlimited freedom in her parents’ house; they did
not spoil her, they even avoided her a little, but they did not thwart
her, and that was all she wanted.... Sometimes--during some too
humiliating scene--when some tradesman would come and keep shouting, to
be heard over the whole court, that he was sick of coming after his
money, or their own servants would begin abusing their masters to their
face, with ‘fine princes you are, to be sure; you may whistle for your
supper, and go hungry to bed’--Irina would not stir a muscle; she would
sit unmoved, an evil smile on her dark face; and her smile alone was
more bitter to her parents than any reproaches, and they felt themselves
guilty--guilty, though guiltless--towards this being on whom had been
bestowed, as it seemed, from her very birth, the right to wealth, to
luxury, and to homage.
Litvinov fell in love with Irina from the moment he saw her (he was only
three years older than she was), but for a long while he failed to
obtain not only a response, but even a hearing. Her manner to him was
even overcast with a shade of something like hostility; he did in fact
wound her pride, and she concealed the wound, and could never forgive
it. He was too young and too modest at that time to understand what
might be concealed under this hostile, almost contemptuous severity.
Often, forgetful of lectures and exercises, he would sit and sit in the
Osinins’ cheerless drawing-room, stealthily watching Irina, his heart
slowly and painfully throbbing and suffocating him; and she would seem
angry or bored, would get up and walk about the room, look coldly at him
as though he were a table or chair, shrug her shoulders, and fold her
arms. Or for a whole evening, even when talking with Litvinov, she would
purposely avoid looking at him, as though denying him even that grace.
Or she would at last take up a book and stare at it, not reading, but
frowning and biting her lips. Or else she would suddenly ask her father
or brother aloud: ‘What’s the German for patience?’ He tried to tear
himself away from the enchanted circle in which he suffered and
struggled impotently like a bird in a trap; he went away from Moscow for
a week. He nearly went out of his mind with misery and dulness; he
returned quite thin and ill to the Osinins’.... Strange to say, Irina
too had grown perceptibly thinner during those days; her face had grown
pale, her cheeks were wan.... But she met him with still greater
coldness, with almost malignant indifference; as though he had
intensified that secret wound he had dealt at her pride.... She tortured
him in this way for two months. Then everything was transformed in one
day. It was as though love had broken into flame with the heat, or had
dropped down from a storm-cloud. One day--long will he remember that
day--he was once more sitting in the Osinins’ drawing-room at the
window, and was looking mechanically into the street. There was vexation
and weariness in his heart, he despised himself, and yet he could not
move from his place.... He thought that if a river ran there under the
window, he would throw himself in, with a shudder of fear, but without a
regret. Irina placed herself not far from him, and was somehow strangely
silent and motionless. For some days now she had not talked to him at
all, or to any one else; she kept sitting, leaning on her elbows, as
though she were in perplexity, and only rarely she looked slowly round.
This cold torture was at last more than Litvinov could bear; he got up,
and without saying good-bye, he began to look for his hat. ‘Stay,’
sounded suddenly, in a soft whisper. Litvinov’s heart throbbed, he did
not at once recognise Irina’s voice; in that one word, there was a ring
of something that had never been in it before. He lifted his head and
was stupefied; Irina was looking fondly--yes, fondly at him. ‘Stay,’ she
repeated; ‘don’t go. I want to be with you.’ Her voice sank still lower.
‘Don’t go.... I wish it.’ Understanding nothing, not fully conscious
what he was doing, he drew near her, stretched out his hands.... She
gave him both of hers at once, then smiling, flushing hotly, she turned
away, and still smiling, went out of the room. She came back a few
minutes later with her youngest sister, looked at him again with the
same prolonged tender gaze, and made him sit near her.... At first she
could say nothing; she only sighed and blushed; then she began, timidly
as it were, to question him about his pursuits, a thing she had never
done before. In the evening of the same day, she tried several times to
beg his forgiveness for not having done him justice before, assured him
she had now become quite different, astonished him by a sudden outburst
of republicanism (he had at that time a positive hero-worship for
Robespierre, and did not presume to criticise Marat aloud), and only a
week later he knew that she loved him. Yes; he long remembered that
first day ... but he did not forget those that came after either--those
days, when still forcing himself to doubt, afraid to believe in it, he
saw clearly, with transports of rapture, almost of dread, bliss un-hoped
for coming to life, growing, irresistibly carrying everything before it,
reaching him at last. Then followed the radiant moments of first
love--moments which are not destined to be, and could not fittingly be,
repeated in the same life. Irina became all at once as docile as a
lamb, as soft as silk, and boundlessly kind; she began giving lessons to
her younger sisters--not on the piano, she was no musician, but in
French and English; she read their school-books with them, and looked
after the housekeeping; everything was amusing and interesting to her;
she would sometimes chatter incessantly, and sometimes sink into
speechless tenderness; she made all sorts of plans, and was lost in
endless anticipations of what she would do when she was married to
Litvinov (they never doubted that their marriage would come to pass),
and how together they would ... ‘Work?’ prompted Litvinov.... ‘Yes;
work,’ repeated Irina, ‘and read ... but travel before all things.’ She
particularly wanted to leave Moscow as soon as possible, and when
Litvinov reminded her that he had not yet finished his course of study
at the university, she always replied, after a moment’s thought, that it
was quite possible to finish his studies at Berlin or ... somewhere or
other. Irina was very little reserved in the expression of her feelings,
and so her relations with Litvinov did not long remain a secret from the
prince and princess. Rejoice they could not; but, taking all
circumstances into consideration, they saw no necessity for putting a
veto on it at once. Litvinov’s fortune was considerable....
‘But his family, his family!’ ... protested the princess. ‘Yes, his
family, of course,’ replied the prince; but at least he’s not quite a
plebeian; and, what’s the principal point, Irina, you know, will not
listen to us. Has there ever been a time when she did not do what she
chose? _Vous connaissez sa violence!_ Besides, there is nothing fixed
definitely yet.’ So reasoned the prince, but mentally he added, however:
‘Madame Litvinov--is that all? I had expected something else.’ Irina
took complete possession of her future _fiancé_, and indeed he himself
eagerly surrendered himself into her hands. It was as if he had fallen
into a rapid river, and had lost himself.... And bitter and sweet it was
to him, and he regretted nothing and heeded nothing. To reflect on the
significance and the duties of marriage, or whether he, so hopelessly
enslaved, could be a good husband, and what sort of wife Irina would
make, and whether their relations to one another were what they should
be--was more than he could bring himself to. His blood was on fire, he
could think of nothing, only--to follow her, be with her, for the future
without end, and then--let come what may!
But in spite of the complete absence of opposition on Litvinov’s side,
and the wealth of impulsive tenderness on Irina’s, they did not get on
quite without any misunderstandings and quarrels. One day he ran to her
straight from the university in an old coat and ink-stained hands. She
rushed to meet him with her accustomed fond welcome; suddenly she
stopped short.
‘You have no gloves,’ she said abruptly, and added directly after: ‘Fie!
what a student you are!’
‘You are too particular, Irina,’ remarked Litvinov.
‘You are a regular student,’ she repeated. ‘_Vous n’êtes pas
distingué_’; and turning her back on him she went out of the room. It is
true that an hour later she begged him to forgive her.... As a rule she
readily censured herself and accused herself to him; but, strange to
say, she often almost with tears blamed herself for evil propensities
which she had not, and obstinately denied her real defects. Another time
he found her in tears, her head in her hands, and her hair in disorder;
and when, all in agitation, he asked her the cause of her grief, she
pointed with her finger at her own bosom without speaking. Litvinov gave
an involuntary shiver. ‘Consumption!’ flashed through his brain, and he
seized her hand.
‘Are you ill, Irina?’ he articulated in a shaking voice. (They had
already begun on great occasions to call each other by their first
names.) ‘Let me go at once for a doctor.’
But Irina did not let him finish; she stamped with her foot in vexation.
‘I am perfectly well ... but this dress ... don’t you understand?’
‘What is it? ... this dress,’ he repeated in bewilderment.
‘What is it? Why, that I have no other, and that it is old and
disgusting, and I am obliged to put on this dress every day ... even
when you--Grisha--Grigory, come here.... You will leave off loving me,
at last, seeing me so slovenly!’
‘For goodness sake, Irina, what are you saying? That dress is very
nice.... It is dear to me too because I saw you for the first time in
it, darling.’
Irina blushed.
‘Do not remind me, if you please, Grigory Mihalovitch, that I had no
other dress even then.’
‘But I assure you, Irina Pavlovna, it suits you so exquisitely.’
‘No, it is horrid, horrid,’ she persisted, nervously pulling at her
long, soft curls. ‘Ugh, this poverty, poverty and squalor! How is one
to escape from this sordidness! How get out of this squalor!’
Litvinov did not know what to say, and slightly turned away from her.
All at once Irina jumped up from her chair, and laid both her hands on
his shoulders.
‘But you love me, Grisha? You love me?’ she murmured, putting her face
close to him, and her eyes, still filled with tears, sparkled with the
light of happiness, ‘You love me, dear, even in this horrid dress?’
Litvinov flung himself on his knees before her.
‘Ah, love me, love me, my sweet, my saviour,’ she whispered, bending
over him.
So the days flew, the weeks passed, and though as yet there had been no
formal declaration, though Litvinov still deferred his demand for her
hand, not, certainly, at his own desire, but awaiting directions from
Irina (she remarked sometimes that they were both ridiculously young,
and they must add at least a few weeks more to their years), still
everything was moving to a conclusion, and the future as it came nearer
grew more and more clearly defined, when suddenly an event occurred,
which scattered all their dreams and plans like light roadside dust.