Eight years have passed. Spring has come again.... But first, let us say a
few words about the fate of Mikhalevitch, Panshin, Mme. Lavretzky--and
take our leave of them. Mikhalevitch, after long peregrinations, has
finally hit upon his real vocation: he has obtained the post of head
inspector in a government institution. He is very well satisfied with his
lot, and his pupils "adore" him, although they mimic him. Panshin has
advanced greatly in rank, and already has a directorship in view; he walks
with his back somewhat bent: it must be the cross of the Order of
Vladimir, which has been conferred upon him, that drags him forward. The
official in him has, decidedly, carried the day over the artist; his still
youthful face has turned quite yellow, his hair has grown thin, and he no
longer sings or draws, but secretly occupies himself with literature: he
has written a little comedy, in the nature of "a proverb,"--and, as every
one who writes nowadays "shows up" some one or something, he has shown up
in it a coquette, and he reads it surreptitiously to two or three ladies
who are favourably disposed toward him. But he has not married, although
many fine opportunities of so doing have presented themselves: for this
Varvara Pavlovna is responsible. As for her, she lives uninterruptedly
in Paris, as of yore: Feodor Ivanitch has given her a bill of exchange
on himself, and bought himself free from her,--from the possibility of a
second, unexpected invasion. She has grown old and fat, but it is still
pretty and elegant. Every person has his own ideal: Varvara Pavlovna has
found hers--in the dramatic productions of Dumas fils. She assiduously
frequents the theatre where consumptive and sentimental ladies of the
frail class are put on the stage; to be Mme. Doche seems to her the very
apex of human felicity; one day, she declared that she desired no better
lot for her daughter. It is to be hoped that fate will deliver
Mademoiselle Ada from such felicity: from a rosy, plump child, she has
turned into a weak-chested, pale-faced young girl; her nerves are already
deranged. The number of Varvara Pavlovna's admirers has decreased; but
they have not transferred their allegiance: she will, in all probability,
retain several of them to the end of her life. The most ardent of them, of
late, has been a certain Zakurdalo-Skubyrnikoff, one of the retired
dandies of the Guards, a man of eight and thirty, of remarkably robust
build. The Frenchmen who frequent Mme. Lavretzky's salon call him "_le
gros taureau de l'Ukraine_"; Varvara Pavlovna never invites him to her
fashionable evening gatherings, but he enjoys her favour in the fullest
measure.
So ... eight years have passed. Again the sky is breathing forth the
beaming happiness of spring; again it is smiling upon the earth and upon
men; again, beneath its caress, everything has burst into blossom, into
love and song. The town of O * * * has undergone very little change in
the course of those eight years; but Marya Dmitrievna's house seems to
have grown young: its recently painted walls shine as in welcome, and the
panes of the open windows are crimsoning and glittering in the rays of the
setting sun. Through these windows, out upon the street, are wafted the
sounds of ringing young voices, of incessant laughter; the whole house
seems bubbling with life, and overflowing the brim with merriment. The
mistress of the house herself has long since gone to her grave: Marya
Dmitrievna died two years after Liza's profession as a nun; and Marfa
Timofeevna did not long survive her niece; they rest side by side in the
town cemetery. Nastasya Karpovna, also, is dead; the faithful old woman
went, every week, for the space of several years, to pray over the ashes
of her friend.... Her time came, and her bones also were laid in the damp
earth. But Marya Dmitrievna's house has not passed into the hands of
strangers, has not left her family; the nest has not been destroyed:
Lyenotchka, who has become a stately, beautiful young girl, and her
betrothed, a fair-haired officer of hussars; Marya Dmitrievna's son, who
has just been married in Petersburg, and has come with his young wife to
spend the spring in O * * *; his wife's sister, an Institute-girl of
sixteen, with brilliantly scarlet cheeks and clear eyes; Schurotchka, who
has also grown up and become pretty--these are the young folks who are
making the walls of the Kalitin house re-echo with laughter and chatter.
Everything about it has been changed, everything has been brought into
accord with the new inhabitants. Beardless young house-servants, who grin
and jest, have taken the places of the former sedate old servitors; where
overgrown Roska was wont to stroll, two setters are chasing madly about,
and leaping over the divans; the stable has been filled with clean-limbed
amblers, high-spirited shaft-horses, fiery trace-horses with braided
manes, and riding-horses from the Don; the hours for breakfast, dinner,
and supper have become mixed up and confused; according to the expression
of the neighbours, "an unprecedented state of affairs" has been
established.
On the evening of which we are speaking, the inhabitants of the Kalitin
house (the oldest of them, Lyenotchka's betrothed, was only four and
twenty) were engaged in a far from complicated, but, judging from their
vigorous laughter, a very amusing game: they were running through the
rooms, and catching each other; the dogs, also, were running and barking,
and the canaries which hung in cages in front of the windows vied with
each other in singing at the tops of their voices, increasing the uproar
of ringing volleys of noise with their furious chirping. While this
deafening diversion was at its very height, a mud-stained tarantas drove
up to the gate, and a man of forty-five, clad in travelling garb,
descended from it, and stopped short in amazement. He stood motionless
for some time, swept an attentive glance over the house, passed through
the gate into the yard, and slowly ascended the steps. There was no one
in the anteroom to receive him; but the door of the "hall" flew wide
open; through it, all flushed, bounced Schurotchka, and instantly, in
pursuit of her, with ringing laughter, rushed the whole youthful band.
She came to a sudden halt and fell silent at the sight of the stranger;
but the clear eyes fastened upon him were as caressing as ever, the fresh
faces did not cease to smile. Marya Dmitrievna's son stepped up to the
visitor, and courteously asked him what he wished.
"I am Lavretzky,"--said the visitor.
A vigorous shout rang out in response--and not because all these young
people were so extremely delighted at the arrival of the distant, almost
forgotten relative, but simply because they were ready to make an uproar
and rejoice on every convenient opportunity. They immediately surrounded
Lavretzky: Lyenotchka, in the quality of an old acquaintance, was the
first to introduce herself, and to assure him that, in another moment,
she certainly would have recognised him, and then she presented all the
rest of the company, calling each one of them, including her betrothed,
by his pet name. The whole throng moved through the dining-room to the
drawing-room. The hangings in both rooms were different, but the
furniture remained the same; Lavretzky recognised the piano; even the
same embroidery-frame was standing in the window, in the same
position--and almost with the same unfinished bit of embroidery as eight
years previously. They made him sit down in a comfortable easy-chair; all
seated themselves decorously around him. Questions, exclamations, stories
showered down without cessation.
"But it is a long time since we have seen you,"--remarked Lyenotchka,
ingenuously:--"and we have not seen Varvara Pavlovna either."
"I should think so!"--interposed her brother, hurriedly. "I carried thee
off to Petersburg, but Feodor Ivanitch lived in the country all the
time."
"Yes, and mamma has died since, you know."
"And Marfa Timofeevna,"--said Schurotchka.
"And Nastasya Karpovna,"--rejoined Lyenotchka.--"And M'sieu Lemm...."
"What? And is Lemm dead also?"--asked Lavretzky.
"Yes,"--replied young Kalitin:--"he went away from here to Odessa--they
say that some one decoyed him thither; and there he died."
"You do not know--whether he left any music behind him?"
"I don't know,--it is hardly probable."
All fell silent, and exchanged glances. A cloud of sadness had descended
upon all the young faces.
"And Matroska is alive,"--suddenly remarked Lyenotchka.
"And Gedeonovsky is alive,"--added her brother.
At the name of Gedeonovsky a vigorous peal of laughter rang out in
unison.
"Yes, he is alive, and lies just as he always did,"--went on Marya
Dmitrievna's son:--"and just imagine, that naughty child there" (and he
pointed at his wife's sister, the Institute-girl) "put pepper in his
snuff-box yesterday."
"How he did sneeze!" exclaimed Lyenotehka:--and again a peal of
irrepressible laughter rang out.
"We received news of Liza recently,"--said young Kalitin,--and again
everything grew still round about:--"things are well with her,--her
health is now improving somewhat."
"Is she still in the same convent?"--asked Lavretzky, not without an
effort.
"Yes, still in the same place."
"Does she write to you?"
"No, never; the news reaches us through other people."--A sudden,
profound silence ensued. "The angel of silence has flown past," all said
to themselves.
"Would not you like to go into the garden?"--Kalitin turned to
Lavretzky:--"it is very pretty now, although we have rather neglected
it."
Lavretzky went out into the garden, and the first thing that struck his
eyes was the bench on which he had once spent with Liza a few happy
moments, never to be repeated; it had grown black and crooked; but he
recognised it, and his soul was seized by that feeling which has no peer
in sweetness and in sorrow,--the feeling of living grief for vanished
youth, for happiness which it once possessed. In company with the young
people, he strolled through the alleys: the linden-trees had not grown
much older and taller during the last eight years, but their shade had
become more dense; on the other hand, all the shrubs had sprung upward,
the raspberry-bushes had waxed strong, the hazel copse had become
entirely impenetrable, and everywhere there was an odour of thickets,
forest, grass, and lilacs.
"What a good place this would be to play at puss-in-the-corner,"--suddenly
cried Lyenotchka, as they entered a small, verdant glade, hemmed in by
lindens:--"by the way, there are five of us."
"And hast thou forgotten Feodor Ivanitch?"--her brother observed to
her.... "Or art thou not reckoning in thyself?"
Lyenotchka blushed faintly.
"But is it possible that Feodor Ivanitch, at his age, can..."--she
began.
"Please play,"--interposed Lavretzky, hastily:--"pay no heed to me. It
will be all the more agreeable to me if I know that I am not embarrassing
you. And there is no need for you to bother about me; we old fellows have
occupations of which you, as yet, know nothing, and which no diversion
can replace: memories."
The young people listened to Lavretzky with courteous and almost mocking
respect,--exactly as though their teacher were reading them a
lesson,--and suddenly all of them flew away from him, and ran over the
glade; four of them took up their stand near the trees, one stood in the
centre,--and the fun began.
But Lavretzky returned to the house, went into the dining-room,
approached the piano, and touched one of the keys: a faint, but pure
sound rang out, and secretly trembled in his heart: with that note began
that inspired melody wherewith, long ago, on that same blissful night,
Lemm, the dead Lemm, had led him to such raptures. Then Lavretzky passed
into the drawing-room, and did not emerge from it for a long time: in
that room, where he had so often seen Liza, her image rose up before him
more vividly than ever; it seemed to him, that he felt around him the
traces of her presence; but his grief for her was exhausting and not
light: there was in it none of the tranquillity which death inspires.
Liza was still living somewhere, dully, far away; he thought of her as
among the living, but did not recognise the young girl whom he had once
loved in that pale spectre swathed in the conventual garment, surrounded
by smoky clouds of incense. Lavretzky would not have recognised himself,
had he been able to contemplate himself as he mentally contemplated Liza.
In the course of those eight years the crisis had, at last, been effected
in his life; that crisis which many do not experience, but without which
it is not possible to remain an honourable man to the end: he had really
ceased to think of his own happiness, of selfish aims. He had calmed
down, and--why should the truth be concealed?--he had aged, not alone in
face and body, he had aged in soul; to preserve the heart youthful to old
age, as some say, is difficult, and almost absurd: he may feel content
who has not lost faith in good, steadfastness of will, desire for
activity.... Lavretzky had a right to feel satisfied: he had become a
really fine agriculturist, he had really learned to till the soil, and he
had toiled not for himself alone; in so far as he had been able, he had
freed from care and established on a firm foundation the existence of his
serfs.
Lavretzky emerged from the house into the garden: he seated himself on
the familiar bench--and in that dear spot, in the face of the house,
where he had, on the last occasion, stretched out his hands in vain to
the fatal cup in which seethes and sparkles the wine of delight,--he, a
solitary, homeless wanderer,--to the sounds of the merry cries of the
younger generation which had already superseded him,--took a survey of
his life. His heart was sad, but not heavy and not very sorrowful: he had
nothing which he had need to regret or be ashamed of. "Play on, make
merry, grow on, young forces,"--he thought, and there was no bitterness
in his meditations:--"life lies before you, and it will be easier for you
to live: you will not be compelled, as we have been, to seek your road,
to struggle, to fall, and to rise to your feet again amid the gloom; we
have given ourselves great trouble, that we might remain whole,--and how
many of us have failed in that!--but you must do deeds, work,--and the
blessing of old fellows like me be upon you. But all that remains for me,
after to-day, after these emotions, is to make my final reverence to you,
and, although with sadness, yet without envy, without any dark feelings,
to say, in view of the end, in view of God who is awaiting me: 'Long live
solitary old age! Burn thyself out, useless life!'"
Lavretzky rose softly, and softly went away; no one noticed him, no one
detained him; the merry cries resounded more loudly than ever in the
garden behind the green, dense wall of lofty lindens. He seated himself
in his tarantas, and ordered the coachman to drive home, and not to
press the horses hard.
* * * * *
"And the end?" perchance some dissatisfied reader will say. "And what
became of Lavretzky? of Liza?" But what can one say about people who are
still alive, but who have already departed from the earthly arena,--why
revert to them? They say that Lavretzky paid a visit to that distant
convent where Liza had hidden herself--and saw her. In going from one
choir to the other, she passed close to him--passed with the even,
hurriedly-submissive gait of a nun--and did not cast a glance at him;
only the lashes of the eye which was turned toward him trembled almost
imperceptibly, and her haggard face was bowed a little lower than
usual--and the fingers of her clasped hands, interlaced with her rosary,
were pressed more tightly to one another. What did they both think,--what
did they both feel? Who knows? Who shall say? There are moments in life,
there are feelings ... we can only indicate them,--and pass by.
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[15] The trotter as shaft-horse, and the galloping side-horses
of a troika.--Translator.