The sisters had barely time to change for dinner. They entered the
dining-room somewhat weary and distraught. They were awaited there by
their father Rameyev, the two Matovs--the student Piotr Dmitrievitch
and the schoolboy Misha, sons of Rameyev’s lately deceased cousin to
whom Trirodov’s estate had previously belonged.
The sisters spoke little at the table, and they said nothing of their
day’s adventure. Yet before this they used to be frank and loved to
chat, to tell the things that had happened to them.
Piotr Matov, a tall, spare, pale youth with sparkling eyes, who looked
like a man about to enter a prophetic school, seemed worried and
irritated. His nervousness reflected itself, in embarrassed smiles and
awkward movements, in Misha. The latter was a well-nourished,
rosy-cheeked lad, with a quick, merry eye, but betraying his intense
impressionableness. His smiling mouth trembled slightly around the
corners, apparently without cause.
The old Rameyev, who was more robust than tall, and had the tranquil
manners of a well-trained, well-balanced individual, did not betray
his impatience at his daughters’ tardy appearance, but took his place
at the partially extended table, which seemed small in the middle of
the immense dining-room of dark, embellished oak. Miss Harrison,
unembarrassed, began to ladle out the soup; she was a plump, calm,
slightly grey-haired woman, the personification of a successful
household.
Rameyev noticed that his daughters were tired. A vague alarm stirred
within him. But he quickly extinguished this tiny spark of
displeasure, smiled tenderly at his daughters, and said very quietly,
as if cautiously hinting at something:
“You have walked a little too far, my dears.”
There was a short but awkward silence; then, in order to soften the
hidden significance of his words and to ease his daughters’
embarrassment, he added:
“I see you don’t ride horseback as much as you used to.”
After this he turned to the eldest of the brothers:
“Well, Petya, have you brought any news from town?”
The sisters felt uneasy. They tried to take part in the conversation.
This was in those days when the red demon of murder was prowling in
our native land, and his terrible deeds brought discord and hate into
the bosom of peaceful families. The young people in this house, as
elsewhere, often talked and wrangled about what had happened and what
was yet to be. For all their wrangling, they could not reach any
agreement. Friendship from childhood and good breeding mitigated to
some extent this antagonism of ideas. But more than once their
discussions ended in bitter words.
Piotr, in reply to Rameyev, began to tell about working-men’s
disturbances and projected strikes. Irritation was evident in his
voice. He was one of those who was intensely troubled by problems of a
religious-philosophical character. He thought that the mystical
existence of human unities might be achieved only under the brilliant
and alluring sway of Caesars and Popes. He imagined that he loved
freedom--Christian freedom--yet all the turbulent movements of newly
awakened life aroused only hate in his heart.
“There’s terrible news,” said Piotr; “a general strike is talked of.
It is reported that all the factories will shut down to-morrow.”
Misha burst into an unexpected laugh; it was loud, merry, and
childlike; and there was almost rapture in his remark:
“But you ought to see the sort of face the Headmaster makes on all
such occasions.”
His voice was tender and sonorous, and it rang so softly and sweetly
that he might have been telling about the blessed and the innocent,
about the chaste play on the threshold of paradisian abodes. The words
“strike” and “obstruction” came from his lips like the names of rare,
sweet morsels. He grew cheerful and had a sudden desire to make things
lively in schoolboy fashion. He began to sing loudly:
“Awake, rise up....”
But he became confused, stopped sadly, grew quiet, and blushed. The
sisters laughed. Piotr had a surly look. Rameyev smiled benignly. Miss
Harrison, pretending not to have noticed the discordant incident,
calmly pressed the button of the electric bell attached on a cord to
the hanging light to bring on the next course.
The dinner proceeded slowly in the usual order. The discussion grew
hotter, and went helter-skelter from subject to subject. Such is said
to be the Russian manner in argument. Perhaps it is the universal
manner of people when discussing something that touches them deeply.
Piotr exclaimed hotly:
“Why is the autocracy of the proletariat better than the one already
in force? And what wild, barbarous watchwords they have! ‘Who is not
with us, he is against us!’ ‘Who is master, let him get down from his
place; it’s our banquet.’”
“It’s yet too early to speak of our banquet,” said Elena in a
restrained voice.
“Do you know where we are drifting?” continued Piotr. “There will be a
reign of terror, and a shaking up such as Russia has not yet
experienced. The point at issue is not that there is talking or doing
here or there by certain gentry who imagine that they are making
history. The real issue is in the clash of two classes, two interests,
two cultures, two conceptions of the world, two moral systems. Who is
it that wishes to seize the crown of lordship? It is the
_Kham_,[3] it is he who threatens to devour our culture.”
Elisaveta said reproachfully:
“What a word--_Kham_!”
Piotr smiled in a nervous and aggrieved manner, and asked:
“You don’t like it?”
“I don’t like it,” said Elisaveta calmly.
With her habitual subjection to the thoughts and moods of her elder
sister, Elena said:
“It is a rude word. I feel a reminiscence of a once helpless serfdom
in it.”
“Nevertheless this word is now sufficiently literary,” said Piotr,
with a vague smile. “And why shouldn’t one use it? It’s not the word
that matters. We have seen countless instances with our own eyes of
the progress of the spiritual bossiak[4] who is savagely indifferent
to everything, who is hopelessly wild, malicious, and drunken for
generations to come. He will crush everything--science, art,
everything! A good characteristic specimen of a _kham_ is your
Stchemilov, with whom, Elisaveta, you sympathize so strongly. He’s a
familiar young fellow, a handsome flunkey.”
Piotr fixed his eyes on Elisaveta. She replied calmly:
“I think you very unjust to him. He is a good man.”
Every one was glad when dinner was ended. It was a provoking
conversation. Even the imperturbable Miss Harrison rose from her place
rather sooner than usual. Rameyev went to his own room to get his
hour’s nap. The young people went into the garden. Misha and Elena ran
downhill to the river. They had a keen desire to run one after the
other and to laugh.
“Elisaveta!” called out Piotr.
His voice trembled nervously. Elisaveta paused. She now stood within
the deep shadow of an old linden. She looked questioningly at Piotr,
her graceful bare arms folded on her breast; suddenly her heart beat
faster. What a power of bewitchment was in those most lovable
arms--oh, why did not some sudden impulse of passion throw them upon
his shoulders!
“May I speak a few words to you, Elisaveta?” asked Piotr.
Elisaveta flushed a little, lowered her head, and said quietly:
“Let’s sit down somewhere.”
She walked along the path towards the small summer-house which looked
down the slope. Piotr followed her silently. In silence also they
ascended the steep passage. Elisaveta seated herself and rested her
arms upon the low rail of the open summer-house. The undulating
distances lay before her in one broad panoramic sweep--a view intimate
from childhood, and which never failed to awaken the same delightful
emotion. She was looking no longer at the separate objects--Nature
poured herself out like music before her, in an inexhaustible play of
colour and of soothing sound. Piotr stood before her and looked at her
handsome face. The setting Dragon caressed Elisaveta’s face with its
warm light; the skin thus suffused exulted in its radiance and bloom.
They were silent. Both felt a painful awkwardness. Piotr was nervously
breaking twigs from a birch near by. Elisaveta began:
“What is it you wish to tell me?”
A cold remoteness, almost enmity, sounded in her deeply agitated
voice. She felt her own harshness, to soften which she smiled gently
and timidly.
“What’s there to say,” began Piotr quietly and irresolutely, “but one
and the same thing. Elisaveta, I love you!”
Elisaveta flushed. Her eyes gave a sudden flare, then grew dull. She
rose from her seat and spoke in an agitated manner:
“Piotr, why do you again torment yourself and me needlessly? We have
been so intimate from childhood--yet it seems that we must part! Our
ways are different, we think differently, and believe differently.”
Piotr listened to her with an expression of intense impatience and
vexation. Elisaveta wished to continue, but he interrupted:
“Ah, but what’s the good of saying that? Elisaveta, do, I beg you,
forget our differences. They are so petty! Or let us admit that they
are significant. What I wish to say is that politics and all that
separates us is only a light scum, a momentary froth on the broad
surface of our life. In love there is revelation, there is eternal
truth. He who does not love, he who does not strive towards union with
a beloved, he is dead.”
“I love the people, I love freedom,” said Elisaveta quietly. “My love
is revolt.”
Piotr, ignoring her words, went on:
“You know that I love you. I have loved you a long time. My whole soul
is absorbed as with light with my love for you. I am jealous--and I’m
not ashamed to tell you I am jealous of your favour to any one; I am
even jealous of this bloused workman, whose accomplice you would be if
he had had the sufficient boldness and the brain to be a conspirator;
I am jealous of the half-truths which have captivated you and screen
your love of me.”
Again Elisaveta spoke quietly:
“You reproach me for what is dear to me, for my better part, you wish
that I should become different. You do not love me, you are tempted by
the beautiful Beast--my young body with its smiles and its
caresses....”
And again ignoring what she said, Piotr asserted passionately:
“Elisaveta, dearest, love me! You surely do not love any one else!
Isn’t that so? You do not love any one? You have had no time to fall
in love, to fetter your soul to any one else’s. You are as free as
man’s first bride, you are as superb as his last wife. You have grown
ripe for love--for my love--you too are thirsty for kisses and
embraces, even as I. O Elisaveta, love me, love me!”
“How can I?” said Elisaveta.
“Elisaveta, if you’d only will it!” exclaimed Piotr. “One must wish to
love. If you only understood how I love you, you would love me also.
My love should fire in you a responsive love.”
“My friend, you do not love anything that is mine,” answered
Elisaveta. “You do not love me. I don’t believe you--forgive me--I
don’t understand your love.”
Piotr frowned gloomily and said gruffly:
“You have been fascinated by that false, empty word freedom. You have
never thought over its true meaning.”
“I’ve had little time to think over anything,” observed Elisaveta
calmly, “but the feeling of freedom is the thing nearest to me. I
cannot express it in words--I only know that we are fettered on this
earth by iron bonds of necessity and of circumstance, but the nature
of my soul is freedom; its fire is consuming the chains of my material
dependence. I know that we human beings will always be frail, poor,
lonely; but a time will surely come when we shall pass through the
purifying flame of a great conflagration; then a new earth and a new
heaven shall open up to us; through union we shall attain our final
freedom. I know I am saying all this badly, incoherently--I cannot say
clearly what I feel--but let us, please, say no more.”
Elisaveta strode out of the summer-house. Piotr slowly followed her.
His face was sad and his eyes shone feverishly, but he could not utter
a word--inertia gripped his mind. Quite suddenly he roused himself,
raised his head, smiled, overtook Elisaveta.
“You love me, Elisaveta,” he said with joyous assurance. “You love me,
though you won’t admit it. You are not speaking the truth when you say
that you don’t understand my love. You do know my love, you do believe
in it--tell me, is it possible to love so strongly and not be loved in
return?”
Elisaveta stopped. Her eyes lit up with a strange joy.
“I tell you once more,” she said with calm resolution, “it is not me
you love--you love the First Bride. I am going where I must.”
Piotr stood there and looked after her--helpless, pale, dejected.
Between the bushes a sun-yellow dress fluttered against the now dull
sky of a setting sun.