Trirodov left a pleasant impression on Rameyev. Rameyev made haste to
return his visit: he went together with Piotr. Piotr did not wish to
go to Trirodov’s, but could not make up his mind to refuse. He kept
frowning on the way, but once in Trirodov’s house he tried to be
courteous. This he did constrainedly.
Misha soon made friends with Kirsha and with some of the boys. An
intimacy sprang up between the Rameyevs and Trirodov--that is, to the
extent that Trirodov’s unsociableness and love of a solitary life
permitted him to become intimate.
It once happened that Trirodov took Kirsha with him to the Rameyevs
and remained to dinner. Several other close acquaintances of the
Rameyevs came to dinner. The older of the visitors were the Cadets,
the younger were the Es-Deks[11] and the Es-Ers.[12]
At the beginning there was a long agitated discussion in connexion
with the news brought by one of the younger guests, a public school
instructor named Voronok, an Es-Er. The Chief of Police had been
killed that day near his house. The culprits managed to escape.
Trirodov took almost no part in the conversation. Elisaveta looked at
him with anxious eyes, and the yellow of her dress appeared like the
colour of sadness. It had been remarked by all that Trirodov was
thoughtful and gloomy; he seemed to be tormented by some secret
agitation, which he made obvious efforts to control. At last the
attention of all was turned upon him. This happened after he had
answered one of the girls’ questions.
Trirodov noticed that they were looking at him. He felt uneasy and
vexed with himself. This vexation, however, helped him to control his
agitation. He became more animated, threw off, as it were, some
weight, and began to talk. The glance of Elisaveta’s deep blue eyes
grew joyous at this.
Piotr put in a remark just then, in his usual parochial,
self-confident manner:
“If it were not for the wild changes in Peter’s time, everything would
have gone differently.”
There was a tinge of derision in Trirodov’s smile.
“A mistake, wasn’t it?” he observed. “But if you are going to look for
mistakes in Russian history, why not start earlier?”
“You mean at the beginning of creation?” said Piotr.
“Precisely then. But without going so far back, let us pause at the
Mongolian period,” replied Trirodov. “The historical error was that
Russia did not amalgamate with the Tartars.”
“As if there were not enough Tartars in Russia now!” said Piotr,
provoked.
“That’s precisely why there are many--because they didn’t amalgamate,”
observed Trirodov. “They should have had the sense to establish a
Russo-Mongolian empire.”
“And become Mohammedans?” asked Dr. Svetilovitch, a very agreeable
person but very confident of all that was obvious.
“Not at all!” answered Trirodov. “Wasn’t Boris Godunov a Christian?
That’s not the point at issue. All the same, we and the Catholics of
Western Europe have regarded each other as heretics; and our empire
might have become a universal one. Even if they had counted us among
the yellow race, it should be remembered that the yellow race might
have been considered under the circumstances quite noble and the
yellow skin a very elegant thing.”
“You are developing a strange Mongolian paradox,” said Piotr
contemptuously.
“Even now,” retorted Trirodov, “we are looked upon by the rest of
Europe as almost Mongols, as a race mixed with Mongolian elements. You
know the saying: ‘Scratch a Russian and you will find a Tartar.’”
A discussion arose which continued until they left the table.
Piotr Matov was very much out of sorts during the entire dinner. He
found almost nothing to say to his neighbour, a young girl, a
dark-eyed, dark-haired beauty, an Es-Dek. And the handsome Es-Dek
began to turn more and more towards the diner on the other side of
her, the priest Zakrasin. He belonged to the Cadets, but was nearer to
her in his convictions than the Octobrist[13] Matov.
Piotr was displeased because Elisaveta paid no attention to him and
appeared to be absorbed in Trirodov and in what he was saying; and it
vexed him because Elena also now and then let her softened gaze rest
upon Trirodov. He felt he wanted to say provoking things to Trirodov.
“Yet he is a guest,” reflected Piotr to himself, but at last he could
hold out no longer; he felt that he must in one way or another shake
Trirodov’s self-assurance. Piotr walked up to him and, swaying before
him on his long thin legs, remarked, without almost the slightest
effort to conceal his animosity:
“Some days ago on the pier a stranger made inquiries about you.
Kerbakh and Zherbenev were talking nonsense, and he sat down near them
and seemed very interested in you.”
“Rather flattering,” said Trirodov unwillingly.
“I cannot say to what an extent it is flattering,” said Piotr
maliciously. “In my opinion there was little to recommend him. His
appearance was rather suspicious--that of a ragamuffin, in fact.
Though he insists he’s an actor, I have my doubts. He says you are old
friends. A most insolent fellow.”
Trirodov smiled. Elisaveta remarked with some agitation:
“We met him some days ago not far from your house.”
“It’s quite a lonely place,” observed Trirodov in an uncertain voice.
Piotr went on to describe him.
“Yes, that’s the actor Ostrov,” assented Trirodov.
Elisaveta, feeling a strange unrest, put in:
“He seemed to have gone around the neighbourhood looking about and
asking questions. I wonder what he can be up to.”
“Evidently a spy,” said the young Es-Dek contemptuously.
Trirodov, without expressing the slightest astonishment, remarked:
“Do you think so? It’s possible. I really don’t know. I haven’t seen
him for five years now.”
The young Es-Dek, thinking that Trirodov felt offended at her
reference to his acquaintance, added affectedly:
“You know him well; then please pardon me.”
“I don’t know his present condition,” put in Trirodov. “Everything is
possible.”
“It’s impossible to be responsible for all chance acquaintances!”
interpolated Rameyev.
Trirodov turned to Piotr:
“And what did he say about me?”
But his voice did not express any especial curiosity. Piotr replied
with a sarcastic smile:
“He said very little, but asked a great deal. He said that you knew
him very well. In any case, I soon left.”
“Yes, I have known him a long time,” was Trirodov’s calm answer.
“Perhaps not too well, yet I know him. I had some dealings with him.”
“I think he paid you a visit yesterday?”
“Yes,” said Trirodov in reply to Elisaveta’s question, “he came to see
me last evening, quite late. I don’t know why he chose such a late
hour. He asked assistance. His demands were large. I will give him
what I can. He’s going away from here.”
All this was said in jerks, unwillingly. No one seemed to care to
continue the subject further, but at this moment, quite unexpectedly
to all, Kirsha entered into the conversation. He went up to his father
and said in a quiet but audible voice:
“He purposely came late, while I slept, so that I shouldn’t see him.
But I remember him. When I was very little he used to show me dreadful
tricks. I don’t remember them now. I can only remember that I used to
get frightened and that I cried.”
All looked in astonishment at Kirsha, exchanged glances and smiled.
“You must have seen it in a dream, Kirsha,” said Trirodov--quietly.
Then, turning to the older people: “Boys of his age love fantastic
tales. Even we love Utopia and read Wells. The very life which we are
now creating is a joining, as it were, of real existence with
fantastic and Utopian elements. Take, for example, this affair of....”
In this manner Trirodov interrupted the conversation about Ostrov and
changed it to another subject that was agitating all circles at the
time. He left very soon after that. The others also stayed but a short
time.
There was an atmosphere of irritation and hostility after the guests
had gone. Rameyev reproached Piotr.
“My dear Petya, you shouldn’t have done that. It isn’t hospitable. You
were looking all the time at Trirodov as if you were getting ready to
send him to all the devils.”
Piotr replied with a controlled gruffness:
“Yes, precisely, to all the devils. You have guessed my feelings,
uncle.”
Rameyev eyed him incredulously and said:
“Why, my dear fellow?”
“Why?” repeated Piotr, giving free rein to his irritation. “What is
he? A charlatan? A visionary? A magician? Is he in partnership with
some unclean power? What do you think of it? Or is it the devil
himself come in a human shape--a little grey, cloven-hoofed demon?”
“That’s enough, Petya; what are you saying?” said Rameyev with
annoyance.
Elisaveta smiled an incredulous smile, full of gentle irony; a golden,
saddened smile, set off by the melancholy yellow rose in her black
hair. And Elena’s astonished eyes dilated widely.
“Think it over yourself, uncle,” went on Piotr, “and look around you.
He has bewitched our little girls completely!”
“Well, if he has,” said Elena with a gay smile, “it’s only just a
little as far as I am concerned.”
Elisaveta flushed but said with composure:
“Yes, he’s interesting to listen to; and it’s no use stuffing one’s
ears.”
“There, she admits it!” exclaimed Piotr angrily.
“Admits what?” asked Elisaveta in astonishment.
“That for the sake of this cold, vain egoist you are ready to forget
every one.”
“I’ve not noticed either his vanity or his egoism,” said Elisaveta
coldly. “I wonder how you’ve managed to know him so well--or so ill.”
“All this is pitiful and absurd nonsense, only an excuse for starting
a quarrel,” said Piotr angrily.
“Petya, you envy him,” retorted Elisaveta with unaccustomed sharpness.
Then, feeling that she had overstepped the mark, she added:
“Do forgive me, Petya, but really you are exasperating sometimes with
your personal attacks.”
“Envy him? Why should I?” he said hotly. “Tell me, what useful thing
has he done? To be sure, he has published a few tales, a volume of
verses--but name me even a single work of his prose or verse that
contains the slightest sense or beauty.”
“His verses....” began Elisaveta.
But Piotr would not let her continue.
“Tell me, where is his talent? What is he famous for? All that he
writes only seems like poetry. If you look at it closely you will see
that it is bookish, forced, dry--it is diabolically suggestive without
being talented.”
Rameyev interrupted in a conciliatory tone:
“You’re unjust. You can’t deny him everything.”
“Let us admit, then, that there’s something in his work not altogether
bad,” continued Piotr. “Who is there nowadays who cannot put together
some nice-sounding versicles! Yet what is there really I should
respect in him? He’s nothing but a corrupt, bald-headed, ridiculous,
and dull-sighted person--yet Elisaveta considers him a handsome man!”
“I never said anything about his being handsome,” protested Elisaveta.
“As for his corruption, isn’t it purely town tattle?”
She frowned and grew red. Her blue eyes flared up with small greenish
flames. Piotr walked angrily out of the room.
“Why is he so annoyed?” asked Rameyev in astonishment.
Elisaveta lowered her head and said with childish bashfulness:
“I don’t know.”
She could not repress an ashamed smile at her timid words, because she
felt like a little girl who was concealing something. At last she
overcame her shame and said:
“He’s jealous!”