The days passed quietly by. Every morning the sun climbed up through the
blue air, and lighted up the Volga and its banks. At midday the snowy
clouds crept up, often piled one on another until the blue sky was
hidden, and the cooling rain fell on woods and fields; then once more
the clouds stole away before the approach of the warm, pleasant evening.
Life at Malinovka passed just as peacefully. The naiveté of the
surroundings had not yet lost its charm for Raisky. The sunshine
insinuating itself everywhere, his aunt’s kind face, Marfinka’s
friendliness, and the willing attention of the servants made up a
pleasant, friendly environment. He even felt pleasure in the watchful
guardianship that his aunt exercised over him; he smiled when she
preached order to him, warned him of crime and temptation, reproached
him for his gipsy tendencies and tried to lead him to a definite plan of
life.
He liked Tiet Nikonich, and saw in his courtesy and his extreme good
manners, his care for his health, and the universal esteem and affection
in which he was held, a survival from the last century. When he felt
very good tempered he found even Paulina Karpovna’s eccentricities
amusing. She had induced him to lunch with her one day, when she assured
him that she was not indifferent to him, and that he himself was on the
eve of returning her sentiments!
The even, monotonous life lulled him like a cradle song. He wrote idly
at his novel, strengthened a situation here, grouped a scene there, or
accentuated a character. He watched his aunt, Leonti and his wife, and
Marfinka, or looked at the villages and fields lying in an enchanted
sleep along the banks of the Volga. In this ocean of silence he caught
notes which he could interpret in terms of music, and determined, in his
abundant leisure, to pursue the subject.
One day, after a lonely walk along the shore, he climbed the cliff, and
passed Koslov’s house. Seeing that the windows were lighted, he was
going up to the door, when suddenly he heard someone climb over the
fence and jump down into the garden. Standing in the shadow of the fence,
Raisky hesitated. He was afraid to sound the alarm until he knew whether
it was a thief or an admirer of Juliana Andreevna’s, some Monsieur
Charles or other. However, he decided to pursue the intruder, and
promptly climbed the fence and followed him. The man stopped before a
window and hammered on the pane.
“That is no thief, possibly Mark,” thought Raisky. He was right.
“Philosopher, open! Quick!” cried the intruder.
“Go round to the entrance,” said Leonti’s voice dully through the glass.
“To the entrance, to wake the dog! Open!”
“Wait!” said Leonti, and as he opened the window Mark swung himself into
the room.
“Who is that behind you. Whom have you brought with you?” asked Leonti
in terror.
“No one. Do you imagine there’s a ghost. Ah! there is someone scrambling
up.”
“Boris, you? How did you happen to arrive together,” he exclaimed as
Raisky sprang into the room.
Mark cast a hasty glance on Boris and turned to Leonti. “Give me another
pair of trousers. Have you any wine in the house?
“What’s the matter, and where have you been?” asked Leonti suddenly, who
had just noticed that Mark was covered up to the waist with wet and
slime.
“Give me another pair of trousers quick,” said Mark impatiently. “What
is the good of chattering?”
“I have no wine, because we drank it all at dinner, when Monsieur
Charles was our guest.”
“Where do you keep your clothes?”
“My wife is asleep and I don’t know; you must ask Avdotya.”
“Fool! I will find them myself!”
He took a light, and went into the next room.
“You see what he is like,” sighed Leonti, addressing Raisky.
After about ten minutes, Mark returned with the trousers and Leonti
questioned him as to how he had got wet through.
“I was crossing the Volga in a fishing-boat. The ass of a fisherman fell
asleep, and brought us right up into the reeds by the island, and we had
to get out among the reeds to extricate the boat.”
Without taking any heed of Raisky, he changed his trousers and sat down
with his feet drawn up under him in the great armchair, so that his
knees were on a level with his face, and he supported his bearded chin
upon them.
Raisky observed him silently. Mark was twenty-seven, built as if his
muscles were iron, and well proportioned; a thick mane of light brown
hair framed his pale face with its high arched forehead, and fell in
long locks on his neck. The full beard was paler in colour. His open,
bold, irregular, rather thin face was illuminated every now and then by
a smile--of which it was hard to read the meaning; one could not tell
whether it spelt vexation, mockery or pleasure. His grey eyes could be
bold and commanding, but for the most part wore a cold expression of
contempt. Tied up in a knot as he was, he now sat motionless with
staring eyes, stirring neither hand nor foot.
There was something restless and watchful in the motionless attitude, as
in that of a dog apparently at rest, but ready to spring.
Suddenly his eyes gleamed, and he turned to Raisky. “You will have
brought some good cigars from St. Petersburg,” he began without ceremony.
“Give me one.”
Raisky offered his cigar case, and reminded Leonti that he had not
introduced them.
“What need is there of introduction! You came in by the same way, and
both know who the other is.”
“Words of wisdom from the scholar!” ejaculated Mark.
“That same Mark of whom I wrote to you, don’t you remember!” said Leonti.
“Wait, I will introduce myself,” cried Mark, springing from the easy
chair. He posed ceremoniously, and bowed.
“I have the honour to present myself, Mark Volokov, under police
surveillance, involuntary citizen of this town.”
He puffed away at his cigar, and again rolled himself up in a ball.
“What do you do with yourself here?” asked Raisky.
“I think, as you do.”
“You love art, are perhaps an artist?”
“And are you an artist?”
“Painter and musician,” broke in Leonti, “and now he is writing a novel.
Take care, brother, he may put you in too.”
Raisky signed to him to be silent.
“Yes, I am an artist,” Mark went on, “but of a different kind. Your Aunt
will have acquainted you with my works.”
“She won’t hear your name mentioned.”
“There you have it. But it was only a matter of a hundred apples or so
that I plucked from over the fence.”
“The apples are mine; you may take as many as you like.”
“Many thanks. But why should I need your permission? I am accustomed to
do everything in this life without permission. Therefore I will take the
apples without your permission, they taste better.”
“I was curious to make your acquaintance. I hear so many tales about
you.”
“What do they say?”
“Little that is good.”
“Probably they tell you I am a thief, a monster, the terror of the
neighbourhood.”
“That’s about it.”
“But if this reputation precedes me, why should you seek my acquaintance.
I have torn your books, as no doubt our friend there has informed you.”
“There he is to the point,” cried Leonti. “I am glad he began the
subject himself. He is a good sort at the bottom. If one is ill, he
waits on one like a nurse, runs to the chemist, and takes any amount of
trouble. But the rascal wanders round and gives no one any peace.”
“Don’t chatter so,” interrupted Mark.
“For that matter,” said Raisky, “everybody does not abuse you. Tiet
Nikonich Vatutin, for instance, goes out of his way to speak well of
you.”
“Is it possible! The sugar marquis! I left him some souvenirs of my
presence. More than once I have waked him in the night by opening his
bedroom window. He is always fussing about his health, but in all the
forty years since he came here no one remembers him to have been ill. I
shall never return the money he lent me. What more provocation would he
have? And yet he praises me.”
“So that is your department of art,” said Raisky gaily.
“What kind of an artist are you? It is your turn to tell me.”
“I love and adore beauty. I love art, draw, and make music, and just now
I am trying to write a great work, a novel.”
“Yes, yes, I see. You are an artist of the kind we all are.”
“All?”
“With us Russians everybody is an artist. They use the chisel, paint,
strum, write poetry, as you and your like do. Others drive in the
mornings to the courts or the government offices, others sit before
their stalls playing draughts, and still others stick on their
estates--Art is everywhere.”
“Do you feel no desire to enter any of these categories.”
“I have tried, but don’t know how to. What brought you here?”
“I don’t know myself. It is all the same to me where I go. I had a
letter summoning me here from my Aunt, and I came.”
Mark busied himself in his thoughts, and took no further interest in
Raisky. Raisky on the other hand examined the extraordinary person
before him attentively, studied the expression of his face, followed his
movements, and tried to grasp the outline of a strong character. “Thank
God,” he said to himself, “that I am not the only idle, aimless person
here. In this man there is something similar; he wanders about,
reconciles himself to his fate, and does nothing. I at least draw and
try to write my novel, while he does nothing. Is he the victim of secret
discord like myself? Is he always struggling between two fires?
Imagination striving upward to the ideal lures him on on the one
hand--man, nature and life in all its manifestations; on the other he is
attracted by a cold, destructive analysis which allows nothing to live,
and will forget nothing, an analysis that leads to eternal discontent
and blighting cold. Is that his secret?” He glanced at Mark, who was
already drowsing.
“Good-bye, Leonti,” he said, “it’s time I was going home.”
“What am I to do with him?”
“He can stay here all right.”
“Think of the books. It’s leaving the goat loose in the vegetable
garden.”
“I might wheel him in the armchair into that dark little room,
and lock him in,” thought Leonti, “but if he woke, he might pull the
roof down.”
Mark helped him out of his dilemma by jumping to his feet.
“I am going with you,” he said to Raisky. “It is time for you to go to
bed, philosopher,” he said to Leonti. “Don’t sit up at nights. You have
already got a yellow patch in your face, and your eyes are hollow.”
He put out the light, stuffed on his cap, and leapt out of the window.
Raisky followed his example, and they went down the garden once more,
climbed the fence, and came out in the street.
“Listen,” said Mark. “I am hungry, and Leonti has nothing to give me.
Can you help me to storm an inn?”
“As far as I am concerned. But the thing can be managed without the
application of force.”
“It is late, and the inns are shut. No one will open willingly,
especially when it is known that I am in the case; consequently we must
enter by storm. We will call ‘Fire!’ and then they will open at once,
and we can get in.”
“And be hurled out into the street again.”
“There you are wrong. It is possible that I might be refused entrance,
but once in, I remain.”
“A siege, a row at night....”
“Ah, you are afraid of the police,” laughed Mark. “You are thinking of
what the Governor would decide on in such a serious case, what Niel
Andreevich would say, how the company would take it. Now good-bye, I
will go and storm my entrance alone.”
“Wait, I have another, more delightful plan,” said Raisky. “My Aunt
cannot, you say, bear to hear your name; only the other day she declared
she would in no circumstances give you hospitality.”
“Well, what then?”
“Come home with me to supper, and stay the night with me.”
“That’s not a bad plan. Let us go.”
They walked in silence, almost feeling their way through the darkness.
When they came to the fence of the Malinovka estate, which bounded the
vegetable garden, Raisky proposed to climb it.
“It would be better,” said Mark, “to go by way of the orchard or from
the precipice. Here we shall wake the house and must make a circuit in
addition. I always go the other way.”
“You--come--here--into the garden? What to do?”
“To get apples.”
“You have my permission, so long as Tatiana Markovna does not catch
you.”
“I shan’t be caught so easily. Look, someone has just leaped over the
fence, like us. Hi! Stop! Don’t try to hide. Who’s there? Halt! Raisky,
come and help me!”
He ran forward a few paces, and seized someone.
Raisky hurried to the point from which voices were audible, remarking,
“What cat’s eyes you have!” The man who was held fast by Mark’s strong
arms twisted round to free himself, and in the end fell to the ground
and made for the fence.
“Catch him, hold fast! There is another sneaking round in the vegetable
garden,” cried Raisky.
Raisky saw dimly a figure about to spring down from the fence, and
demanded who it was.
“Sir, let me go, do not ruin me!” whispered a woman’s voice.
“Is it you, Marina, what are you doing here?
“Gently, Sir. Don’t call me by name. Savili will hear, and will beat
me.”
“Off with you! No, stop. I have found you at the right moment. Can you
bring some supper to my room?”
“Anything, Sir. Only, for God’s sake, don’t betray me.”
“I won’t betray you. Tell me what there is in the kitchen.”
“The whole supper is there. As you did not come, no one ate anything.
There is sturgeon in jelly, turkey, all on ice.”
“Bring it, and what about wine?”
“There is a bottle in the sideboard, and the fruit liqueurs are in Marfa
Vassilievna’s room.”
“Be careful not to wake her.”
“She sleeps soundly. Let me go now, Sir, for my husband may hear us.”
“Run, but take care you don’t run into him.”
“He dare not do anything if he does meet me now. I shall tell him that
you have given me orders....”
Meanwhile, Mark had dragged his man from hiding. “Savili Ilivich,” the
unknown murmured, “don’t strike me.”
“I ought to know the voice,” said Raisky.
“Ah! You are not Savili Ilivich, thank God. I Sir, I am the gardener
from over there.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I came on a real errand, Sir. Our clock has stopped, and I came here to
wait for the church-clock to strike.”
“Devil take you,” cried Mark, and gave the man a push that sent him
reeling.
The man sprang over the ditch, and vanished in the darkness.
Raisky, meantime, returned to the main entrance. He tried to open the
door, not wishing to knock for fear of awaking his aunt. “Marina,” he
called in a low voice, “Marina, open!”
The bolt was pushed back. Raisky pushed open the door with his foot.
Before him stood--he recognised the voice--Savili, who flung himself
upon him and held him.
“Wait, my little dove, I will make my reckoning with you, not with
Marina.”
“Take your hands off, Savili, it is I.”
“Who, not the Master?” exclaimed Savili, loosening his prisoner. “You
were so good as to call Marina? But,” after a pause, “have you not seen
her.”
“I had already asked her to leave some supper for me and to open the
door,” he said untruthfully, by way of protecting the unfaithful wife.
“She had already heard that I am here. Now let my guest pass, shut the
door, and go to bed.”
“Yes, Sir,” said Savili, and went slowly to his quarters, meeting Marina
on the way.
“Why aren’t you in bed, you demon?” she cried, dashing past him. “You
sneak around at night, you might be twisting the manes of the horses
like a goblin, and put me to shame before the gentry.”
Marina sped past light-footed as a sylph, skilfully balancing dishes and
plates in her hands, and vanished into the dark night. Savili’s answer
was a threatening gesture with his whip.
Mark was indeed hungry, and as Raisky showed no hesitation either, the
sturgeon soon disappeared, and when Marina came to clear away there was
not much to take.
“Now we should like something sweet,” suggested Raisky.
“No sweets are left,” Marina assured them, “but I could get some
preserves, of which Vassilissa has the keys.”
“Better still punch,” said Mark. “Have you any rum?”
“Probably,” she said, in answer to an inquiring glance from Raisky. “The
cook was given a bottle this morning for a pudding. I will see.”
Marina returned with a bottle of rum, a lemon and sugar, and then left
the room. The bowl was soon in flames, which lighted up the darkened
room with their pale blue light. Mark stirred it with the spoon, while
the sugar held between two spoons dripped slowly into the bowl. From
time to time he tasted it.
“How long have you been in our town?” asked Raisky after a short silence.
“About two years.”
“You must assuredly be bored?”
“I try to amuse myself,” he said, pouring out a glass for himself and
emptying it. “Drink,” he said, pushing a glass towards Raisky.
Raisky drank slowly, not from inclination, but out of politeness to his
guest. “It must be essential for you to do something, and yet you appear
to do nothing?”
“And what do you do?”
“I told you I am an artist.”
“Show me proof of your art.”
“At the moment I have nothing except a trifling thing, and even that is
not complete.”
He rose from the divan and uncovered Marfinka’s portrait.
“H’m, it’s like her, and good,” declared Mark. He told himself that
Raisky had talent. “And it would be excellent, but the head is too large
in proportion and the shoulders a trifle broad.”
“He has a straight eye,” thought Raisky.
“I like best the lightly-observed background and accessories, from which
the figure detaches itself light, gay, and transparent. You have found
the secret of Marfinka’s figure. The tone suits her hair and her
complexion.”
Raisky recognised that he had taste and comprehension, and wondered if
he were really an artist in a disguise.
“Do you know Marfinka?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“And Vera?”
“Vera too.”
“Where have you met my cousins? You do not come to the house.”
“At church.”
“At church? But they say you never look inside a church.”
“I don’t exactly remember where I have seen them, in the village, in the
field.”
Raisky concluded his guest was a drunkard, as he drunk down glass after
glass of punch. Mark guessed his thoughts.
“You think it extraordinary that I should drink. I do it out of sheer
boredom, because I am idle and have no occupation. But don’t be afraid
that I shall set the house on fire or murder anybody. To-day I am
drinking more than usual because I am tired and cold. But I am not a
drunkard.”
“It depends on ourselves whether we are idle or not.”
“When you climbed over Leonti’s fence, I thought you were a sensible
individual, but now I see that you belong to the same kind of preaching
person as Niel Andreevich....”
“Is it true that you fired on him?” asked Raisky curiously.
“What nonsense! I fired a shot among the pigeons to empty the barrel of
my gun, as I was returning from hunting. He came up and shouted that I
should stop, because it was sinful. If he had been content with
protesting I should merely have called him a fool, and there it would
have ended. But he began to stamp and to threaten, ‘I will have you put
in prison, you ruffian, and will have you locked up where not even the
raven will bring you a bone.’ I allowed him to run through the whole
gamut of polite remarks, and listened calmly--and then I ‘took aim at
him.’”
“And he?”
“Ducked, lost his stick and goloshes, finally squatted on the ground and
whimpered for forgiveness. I shot into the air. That’s all.”
“A pretty distraction,” commented Raisky ironically.
“No distraction,” said Mark seriously. “There was more in it, a
badly-needed lesson for the old boy.”
“And then what?”
“Nothing. He lied to the Governor, saying that I had aimed at him, but
missed. If I had been a peaceful citizen of the town I should have been
thrust into gaol without delay; but as I am an outlaw, the Governor
inquired into the matter and advised Niel Andreevich to say nothing. So
that no enquiry should be instituted from St. Petersburg; they fear that
like fire.”
“When I spoke of idleness,” said Raisky, “I did not mean to read a moral.
Yet when I see what your mind, your abilities and your education
are....”
“What have you seen? That I can climb a hedge, shoot at a fool, eat and
drink heavily?” he asked as he drained his glass.
Raisky watched him, and wondered uneasily how it would all end.
“We were speaking of the art you love so much,” said Mark.
“I have been snatched from Art as if from my mother’s breast,” sighed
Raisky, “but I shall return and shall reach my goal.”
“No, you will not,” laughed Mark.
“Why not, don’t you believe in firm intentions?”
“How should I do otherwise, since they say the way to Hell is paved with
them. No, you will do little more than you have accomplished
already--that is very little. We, and many like us, simply rot and die.
The only wonder is that you don’t drink. That is how our artists,
half men, usually end their careers.”
Smiling he thrust a glass towards his host, but emptied it himself.
Raisky concluded that he was cold, malicious and heartless. But the last
remark had disturbed him. Was he really only half a man? Had he not a
firm determination to reach the goal he had set before himself? He was
only making fun of him.
“You see that I don’t drink away my talents,” he remarked.
“Yes, that is an improvement, a step forward. You haven’t succumbed to
society, to perfumes, gloves and dancing. Drinking is a different thing.
It goes to one man’s head, another is susceptible to passion. Tell me,
do you easily take fire? Ah! I have touched the spot,” he went on as
Raisky coloured. “That belongs to the artistic temperament, to which
nothing is foreign--_Nihil humanum_, etc. One loves wine, another
women, a third cards. The artists have usurped all these things for
themselves. Now kindly explain what I am.”
“What you are. Why, an artist, without doubt, who on a first
acquaintance will drink, storm public houses, shoot, borrow money--”
“And not repay it. Bravo! an admirable description. To justify your last
remark and prove its truth beyond doubt, lend me a hundred roubles. I
will never pay them back unless you and I should have exchanged our
respective situations in life.”
“You say that in jest?”
“Not at all. The market gardener, with whom I live, feeds me. He has no
money, nor have I.”
Raisky shrugged his shoulders, felt in his pockets, produced his pocket
book and laid some notes on the table.
“You have counted wrong,” said Mark. “There are only eighty here.”
“I have no more money on me. My aunt keeps my money, and I will send you
the balance to-morrow.”
“Don’t forget. This is enough for the moment and now I want to sleep.”
“My bed is at your disposal, and I will sleep on the divan. You are my
guest.”
“I should be worse than a Tatar if I did that,” murmured Mark, already
half asleep. “Lie down on your bed. Anything will do for me.”
In a few minutes he was sleeping the sleep of a tired, satisfied and
drunken man worn out with cold and weariness. Raisky went to the window,
raised the curtain, and looked out into the dark, starlit night. Now and
then a flame hovered over the unemptied bowl, flared up and lighted up
the room for a moment. There was a gentle tap on the door.
“Who is there?” he asked.
“I, Borushka. Open quickly. What are you doing there,” said the anxious
voice of Tatiana Markovna.
Raisky opened the door, and saw his aunt before him, like a white-clad
ghost.
“What is going on here. I saw a light through the window, and thought
you were asleep. What is burning in the bowl.”
“Rum.”
“Do you drink punch at night?” she whispered, looking first at him, then
at the bowl in amazement.
“I am a sinner, Grandmother. Sometimes I drink.”
“And who is lying there asleep?” she asked in new terror as she gazed on
the sleeping Mark.
“Gently, Grandmother, don’t wake him. It is Mark.”
“Mark! Shall I send for the police! What have you to do with him? You
have been drinking punch at night with Mark? What has come over you,
Boris Pavlovich?”
“I found him at Leonti’s, we were both hungry. So I brought him here and
we had supper.”
“Why didn’t you call me. Who served you, and what did they bring you?”
“Marina did everything.”
“A cold meal. Ah, Borushka, you shame me.”
“We had plenty to eat.”
“Plenty, without a single hot dish, without dessert. I will send up some
preserves.”
“No, no ... if you want anything, I can wake Mark and ask him.”
“Good heavens! I am in my night-jacket,” she whispered, and drew back to
the door. “How he sleeps, all rolled up like a little dog. I am ashamed,
Boris Pavlovich, as if we had no beds in the house. But put out the
flames. No dessert!”
Raisky extinguished the blue flame and embraced the old lady. She made
the sign of the Cross over him, looked round the room once more, and
went out on tiptoe. Just as he was going to lie down again there was
another tap on the door, he opened it immediately.
Marina entered, bearing a jar of preserves; then she brought a bed and
two pillows. “The mistress sent them,” she said.
Raisky laughed heartily, and was almost moved to tears.