(A PAINTER'S STORY)
It happened nigh on seven years ago, when I was living in one of the
districts of the J. province, on the estate of Bielokurov, a landowner,
a young man who used to get up early, dress himself in a long overcoat,
drink beer in the evenings, and all the while complain to me that he
could nowhere find any one in sympathy with his ideas. He lived in a
little house in the orchard, and I lived in the old manor-house, in a
huge pillared hall where there was no furniture except a large divan, on
which I slept, and a table at which I used to play patience. Even in
calm weather there was always a moaning in the chimney, and in a storm
the whole house would rock and seem as though it must split, and it was
quite terrifying, especially at night, when all the ten great windows
were suddenly lit up by a flash of lightning.
Doomed by fate to permanent idleness, I did positively nothing. For
hours together I would sit and look through the windows at the sky, the
birds, the trees and read my letters over and over again, and then for
hours together I would sleep. Sometimes I would go out and wander
aimlessly until evening.
Once on my way home I came unexpectedly on a strange farmhouse. The sun
was already setting, and the lengthening shadows were thrown over the
ripening corn. Two rows of closely planted tall fir-trees stood like two
thick walls, forming a sombre, magnificent avenue. I climbed the fence
and walked up the avenue, slipping on the fir needles which lay two
inches thick on the ground. It was still, dark, and only here and there
in the tops of the trees shimmered a bright gold light casting the
colours of the rainbow on a spider's web. The smell of the firs was
almost suffocating. Then I turned into an avenue of limes. And here too
were desolation and decay; the dead leaves rustled mournfully beneath my
feet, and there were lurking shadows among the trees. To the right, in
an old orchard, a goldhammer sang a faint reluctant song, and he too
must have been old. The lime-trees soon came to an end and I came to a
white house with a terrace and a mezzanine, and suddenly a vista opened
upon a farmyard with a pond and a bathing-shed, and a row of green
willows, with a village beyond, and above it stood a tall, slender
belfry, on which glowed a cross catching the light of the setting sun.
For a moment I was possessed with a sense of enchantment, intimate,
particular, as though I had seen the scene before in my childhood.
By the white-stone gate surmounted with stone lions, which led from the
yard into the field, stood two girls. One of them, the elder, thin,
pale, very handsome, with masses of chestnut hair and a little stubborn
mouth, looked rather prim and scarcely glanced at me; the other, who was
quite young--seventeen or eighteen, no more, also thin and pale, with a
big mouth and big eyes, looked at me in surprise, as I passed, said
something in English and looked confused, and it seemed to me that I had
always known their dear faces. And I returned home feeling as though I
had awoke from a pleasant dream.
Soon after that, one afternoon, when Bielokurov and I were walking near
the house, suddenly there came into the yard a spring-carriage in which
sat one of the two girls, the elder. She had come to ask for
subscriptions to a fund for those who had suffered in a recent fire.
Without looking at us, she told us very seriously how many houses had
been burned down in Sianov, how many men, women, and children had been
left without shelter, and what had been done by the committee of which
she was a member. She gave us the list for us to write our names, put it
away, and began to say good-bye.
"You have completely forgotten us, Piotr Petrovich," she said to
Bielokurov, as she gave him her hand. "Come and see us, and if Mr. N.
(she said my name) would like to see how the admirers of his talent live
and would care to come and see us, then mother and I would be very
pleased."