Pavel Petrovitch Kirsanov was educated first at home, like his younger
brother, and afterwards in the Corps of Pages. From childhood he was
distinguished by remarkable beauty; moreover he was self-confident,
somewhat ironical, and had a rather biting humour; he could not fail to
please. He began to be seen everywhere, directly he had received his
commission as an officer. He was much admired in society, and he
indulged every whim, even every caprice and every folly, and gave
himself airs, but that too was attractive in him. Women went out of
their senses over him; men called him a coxcomb, and were secretly
jealous of him. He lived, as has been related already, in the same
apartments as his brother, whom he loved sincerely, though he was not
at all like him. Nikolai Petrovitch was a little lame, he had small,
pleasing features of a rather melancholy cast, small, black eyes, and
thin, soft hair; he liked being lazy, but he also liked reading, and
was timid in society.
Pavel Petrovitch did not spend a single evening at home, prided himself
on his ease and audacity (he was just bringing gymnastics into fashion
among young men in society), and had read in all some five or six
French books. At twenty-eight he was already a captain; a brilliant
career awaited him. Suddenly everything was changed.
At that time, there was sometimes seen in Petersburg society a woman
who has even yet not been forgotten. Princess R----. She had a
well-educated, well-bred, but rather stupid husband, and no children.
She used suddenly to go abroad, and suddenly return to Russia, and led
an eccentric life in general. She had the reputation of being a
frivolous coquette, abandoned herself eagerly to every sort of
pleasure, danced to exhaustion, laughed and jested with young men, whom
she received in the dim light of her drawing-room before dinner; while
at night she wept and prayed, found no peace in anything, and often
paced her room till morning, wringing her hands in anguish, or sat,
pale and chill, over a psalter. Day came, and she was transformed again
into a grand lady; again she went out, laughed, chattered, and simply
flung herself headlong into anything which could afford her the
slightest distraction. She was marvellously well-proportioned, her hair
coloured like gold and heavy as gold hung below her knees, but no one
would have called her a beauty; in her whole face the only good point
was her eyes, and even her eyes were not good--they were grey, and not
large--but their glance was swift and deep, unconcerned to the point of
audacity, and thoughtful to the point of melancholy--an enigmatic
glance. There was a light of something extraordinary in them, even
while her tongue was lisping the emptiest of inanities. She dressed
with elaborate care. Pavel Petrovitch met her at a ball, danced a
mazurka with her, in the course of which she did not utter a single
rational word, and fell passionately in love with her. Being accustomed
to make conquests, in this instance, too, he soon attained his object,
but his easy success did not damp his ardour. On the contrary, he was
in still more torturing, still closer bondage to this woman, in whom,
even at the very moment when she surrendered herself utterly, there
seemed always something still mysterious and unattainable, to which
none could penetrate. What was hidden in that soul--God knows! It
seemed as though she were in the power of mysterious forces,
incomprehensible even to herself; they seemed to play on her at will;
her intellect was not powerful enough to master their caprices. Her
whole behaviour presented a series of inconsistencies; the only letters
which could have awakened her husband's just suspicions, she wrote to a
man who was almost a stranger to her, whilst her love had always an
element of melancholy; with a man she had chosen as a lover, she ceased
to laugh and to jest, she listened to him, and gazed at him with a look
of bewilderment. Sometimes, for the most part suddenly, this
bewilderment passed into chill horror; her face took a wild, death-like
expression; she locked herself up in her bedroom, and her maid, putting
her ear to the keyhole, could hear her smothered sobs. More than once,
as he went home after a tender interview, Kirsanov felt within him that
heartrending, bitter vexation which follows on a total failure.
'What more do I want?' he asked himself, while his heart was heavy. He
once gave her a ring with a sphinx engraved on the stone.
'What's that?' she asked; 'a sphinx?'
'Yes,' he answered, 'and that sphinx is you.'
'I?' she queried, and slowly raising her enigmatical glance upon him.
'Do you know that's awfully flattering?' she added with a meaningless
smile, while her eyes still kept the same strange look.
Pavel Petrovitch suffered even while Princess R---- loved him; but when
she grew cold to him, and that happened rather quickly, he almost went
out of his mind. He was on the rack, and he was jealous; he gave her no
peace, followed her about everywhere; she grew sick of his pursuit of
her, and she went abroad. He resigned his commission in spite of the
entreaties of his friends and the exhortations of his superiors, and
followed the princess; four years he spent in foreign countries, at one
time pursuing her, at another time intentionally losing sight of her.
He was ashamed of himself, he was disgusted with his own lack of spirit
... but nothing availed. Her image, that incomprehensible, almost
meaningless, but bewitching image, was deeply rooted in his heart. At
Baden he once more regained his old footing with her; it seemed as
though she had never loved him so passionately ... but in a month it
was all at an end: the flame flickered up for the last time and went
out for ever. Foreseeing inevitable separation, he wanted at least to
remain her friend, as though friendship with such a woman was
possible.... She secretly left Baden, and from that time steadily
avoided Kirsanov. He returned to Russia, and tried to live his former
life again; but he could not get back into the old groove. He wandered
from place to place like a man possessed; he still went into society;
he still retained the habits of a man of the world; he could boast of
two or three fresh conquests; but he no longer expected anything much
of himself or of others, and he undertook nothing. He grew old and
grey; spending all his evenings at the club, jaundiced and bored, and
arguing in bachelor society became a necessity for him--a bad sign, as
we all know. Marriage, of course, he did not even think of. Ten years
passed in this way; they passed by colourless and fruitless--and
quickly, fearfully quickly. Nowhere does time fly past as in Russia; in
prison they say it flies even faster. One day at dinner at the club,
Pavel Petrovitch heard of the death of the Princess R----. She had died
at Paris in a state bordering on insanity.
He got up from the table, and a long time he paced about the rooms of
the club, or stood stockstill near the card-players, but he did not go
home earlier than usual. Some time later he received a packet addressed
to him; in it was the ring he had given the princess. She had drawn
lines in the shape of a cross over the sphinx and sent him word that
the solution of the enigma--was the cross.
This happened at the beginning of the year 1848, at the very time when
Nikolai Petrovitch came to Petersburg, after the loss of his wife.
Pavel Petrovitch had scarcely seen his brother since the latter had
settled in the country; the marriage of Nikolai Petrovitch had
coincided with the very first days of Pavel Petrovitch's acquaintance
with the princess. When he came back from abroad, he had gone to him
with the intention of staying a couple of months with him, in
sympathetic enjoyment of his happiness, but he had only succeeded in
standing a week of it. The difference in the positions of the two
brothers was too great. In 1848, this difference had grown less;
Nikolai Petrovitch had lost his wife, Pavel Petrovitch had lost his
memories; after the death of the princess he tried not to think of her.
But to Nikolai, there remained the sense of a well-spent life, his son
was growing up under his eyes; Pavel, on the contrary, a solitary
bachelor, was entering upon that indefinite twilight period of regrets
that are akin to hopes, and hopes that are akin to regrets, when youth
is over, while old age has not yet come.
This time was harder for Pavel Petrovitch than for another man; in
losing his past, he lost everything.
'I will not invite you to Maryino now,' Nikolai Petrovitch said to him
one day, (he had called his property by that name in honour of his
wife); 'you were dull there in my dear wife's time, and now I think you
would be bored to death.'
'I was stupid and fidgety then,' answered Pavel Petrovitch; 'since then
I have grown quieter, if not wiser. On the contrary, now, if you will
let me, I am ready to settle with you for good.'
For all answer Nikolai Petrovitch embraced him; but a year and a half
passed after this conversation, before Pavel Petrovitch made up his
mind to carry out his intention. When he was once settled in the
country, however, he did not leave it, even during the three winters
which Nikolai Petrovitch spent in Petersburg with his son. He began to
read, chiefly English; he arranged his whole life, roughly speaking, in
the English style, rarely saw the neighbours, and only went out to the
election of marshals, where he was generally silent, only occasionally
annoying and alarming land-owners of the old school by his liberal
sallies, and not associating with the representatives of the younger
generation. Both the latter and the former considered him 'stuck up';
and both parties respected him for his fine aristocratic manners; for
his reputation for successes in love; for the fact that he was very
well dressed and always stayed in the best room in the best hotel; for
the fact that he generally dined well, and had once even dined with
Wellington at Louis Philippe's table; for the fact that he always took
everywhere with him a real silver dressing-case and a portable bath;
for the fact that he always smelt of some exceptionally 'good form'
scent; for the fact that he played whist in masterly fashion, and
always lost; and lastly, they respected him also for his incorruptible
honesty. Ladies considered him enchantingly romantic, but he did not
cultivate ladies' acquaintance....
'So you see, Yevgeny,' observed Arkady, as he finished his story, 'how
unjustly you judge of my uncle! To say nothing of his having more than
once helped my father out of difficulties, given him all his money--the
property, perhaps you don't know, wasn't divided--he's glad to help any
one, among other things he always sticks up for the peasants; it's
true, when he talks to them he frowns and sniffs eau de cologne.' ...
'His nerves, no doubt,' put in Bazarov.
'Perhaps; but his heart is very good. And he's far from being stupid.
What useful advice he has given me especially ... especially in regard
to relations with women.'
'Aha! a scalded dog fears cold water, we know that!'
'In short,' continued Arkady, 'he's profoundly unhappy, believe me;
it's a sin to despise him.'
'And who does despise him?' retorted Bazarov. 'Still, I must say that a
fellow who stakes his whole life on one card--a woman's love--and when
that card fails, turns sour, and lets himself go till he's fit for
nothing, is not a man, but a male. You say he's unhappy; you ought to
know best; to be sure, he's not got rid of all his fads. I'm convinced
that he solemnly imagines himself a superior creature because he reads
that wretched _Galignani_, and once a month saves a peasant from a
flogging.'
'But remember his education, the age in which he grew up,' observed
Arkady.
'Education?' broke in Bazarov. 'Every man must educate himself, just as
I've done, for instance.... And as for the age, why should I depend on
it? Let it rather depend on me. No, my dear fellow, that's all
shallowness, want of backbone! And what stuff it all is, about these
mysterious relations between a man and woman? We physiologists know
what these relations are. You study the anatomy of the eye; where does
the enigmatical glance you talk about come in there? That's all
romantic, nonsensical, æsthetic rot. We had much better go and look at
the beetle.'
And the two friends went off to Bazarov's room, which was already
pervaded by a sort of medico-surgical odour, mingled with the smell of
cheap tobacco.