understood why Frenchwomen had the reputation of frivolous creatures
easily seduced; he was carried away by this cloud of fragrance, beauty,
and bare flesh, while she, unconscious of his thoughts and probably not
in the least interested in them, rapidly turned over the pages and
translated at full steam:
"'He was walking the street and meeting a gentleman his friend and
saying, "Where are you striving to seeing your face so pale it makes me
sad."'"
The "Mémoires" had long been finished, and now Alice was translating
some other book. One day she came an hour too early for the lesson,
apologizing and saying that she wanted to leave at seven and go to the
Little Theatre. Seeing her out after the lesson, Vorotov dressed and
went to the theatre himself. He went, and fancied that he was going
simply for change and amusement, and that he was not thinking about
Alice at all. He could not admit that a serious man, preparing for a
learned career, lethargic in his habits, could fling up his work and go
to the theatre simply to meet there a girl he knew very little, who was
unintelligent and utterly unintellectual.
Yet for some reason his heart was beating during the intervals, and
without realizing what he was doing, he raced about the corridors and
foyer like a boy impatiently looking for some one, and he was
disappointed when the interval was over. And when he saw the familiar
pink dress and the handsome shoulders under the tulle, his heart
quivered as though with a foretaste of happiness; he smiled joyfully,
and for the first time in his life experienced the sensation of
jealousy.
Alice was walking with two unattractive-looking students and an officer.
She was laughing, talking loudly, and obviously flirting. Vorotov had
never seen her like that. She was evidently happy, contented, warm,
sincere. What for? Why? Perhaps because these men were her friends and
belonged to her own circle. And Vorotov felt there was a terrible gulf
between himself and that circle. He bowed to his teacher, but she gave
him a chilly nod and walked quickly by; she evidently did not care for
her friends to know that she had pupils, and that she had to give
lessons to earn money.
After the meeting at the theatre Vorotov realised that he was in love. .
. . During the subsequent lessons he feasted his eyes on his elegant
teacher, and without struggling with himself, gave full rein to his
imaginations, pure and impure. Mdlle. Enqu?e's face did not cease to
be cold; precisely at eight o'clock every evening she said coldly, "Au
revoir, monsieur," and he felt she cared nothing about him, and never
would care anything about him, and that his position was hopeless.
Sometimes in the middle of a lesson he would begin dreaming, hoping,
making plans. He inwardly composed declarations of love, remembered that
Frenchwomen were frivolous and easily won, but it was enough for him to
glance at the face of his teacher for his ideas to be extinguished as a
candle is blown out when you bring it into the wind on the verandah.
Once, overcome, forgetting himself as though in delirium, he could not
restrain himself, and barred her way as she was going from the study
into the entry after the lesson, and, gasping for breath and stammering,
began to declare his love:
"You are dear to me! I . . . I love you! Allow me to speak."
And Alice turned pale--probably from dismay, reflecting that after this
declaration she could not come here again and get a rouble a lesson.
With a frightened look in her eyes she said in a loud whisper:
"Ach, you mustn't! Don't speak, I entreat you! You mustn't!"
And Vorotov did not sleep all night afterwards; he was tortured by
shame; he blamed himself and thought intensely. It seemed to him that he
had insulted the girl by his declaration, that she would not come to him
again.
He resolved to find out her address from the address bureau in the
morning, and to write her a letter of apology. But Alice came without a
letter. For the first minute she felt uncomfortable, then she opened a
book and began briskly and rapidly translating as usual:
"'Oh, young gentleman, don't tear those flowers in my garden which I
want to be giving to my ill daughter. . . .'"
She still comes to this day. Four books have already been translated,
but Vorotov knows no French but the word "Mémoires," and when he is
asked about his literary researches, he waves his hand, and without
answering, turns the conversation to the weather.
THE PRINCESS
A CARRIAGE with four fine sleek horses drove in at the big so-called Red
Gate of the N--- Monastery. While it was still at a distance, the priests
and monks who were standing in a group round the part of the hostel
allotted to the gentry, recognised by the coachman and horses that the
lady in the carriage was Princess Vera Gavrilovna, whom they knew very
well.
An old man in livery jumped off the box and helped the princess to get
out of the carriage. She raised her dark veil and moved in a leisurely
way up to the priests to receive their blessing; then she nodded
pleasantly to the rest of the monks and went into the hostel.
"Well, have you missed your princess?" she said to the monk who brought
in her things. "It's a whole month since I've been to see you. But here
I am; behold your princess. And where is the Father Superior? My
goodness, I am burning with impatience! Wonderful, wonderful old man!
You must be proud of having such a Superior."
When the Father Superior came in, the princess uttered a shriek of
delight, crossed her arms over her bosom, and went up to receive his
blessing.
"No, no, let me kiss your hand," she said, snatching it and eagerly
kissing it three times. "How glad I am to see you at last, holy Father!
I'm sure you've forgotten your princess, but my thoughts have been in
your dear monastery every moment. How delightful it is here! This living
for God far from the busy, giddy world has a special charm of its own,
holy Father, which I feel with my whole soul although I cannot express
it!"
The princess's cheeks glowed and tears came into her eyes. She talked
incessantly, fervently, while the Father Superior, a grave, plain, shy
old man of seventy, remained mute or uttered abruptly, like a soldier on
duty, phrases such as:
"Certainly, Your Excellency. . . . Quite so. I understand."
"Has Your Excellency come for a long stay?" he inquired.
"I shall stay the night here, and to-morrow I'm going on to Klavdia
Nikolaevna's--it's a long time since I've seen her--and the day after to-
morrow I'll come back to you and stay three or four days. I want to rest
my soul here among you, holy Father. . . ."
The princess liked being at the monastery at N---. For the last two years
it had been a favourite resort of hers; she used to go there almost
every month in the summer and stay two or three days, even sometimes a
week. The shy novices, the stillness, the low ceilings, the smell of
cypress, the modest fare, the cheap curtains on the windows--all this
touched her, softened her, and disposed her to contemplation and good
thoughts. It was enough for her to be half an hour in the hostel for her
to feel that she, too, was timid and modest, and that she, too, smelt of
cypress-wood. The past retreated into the background, lost its
significance, and the princess began to imagine that in spite of her
twenty-nine years she was very much like the old Father Superior, and
that, like him, she was created not for wealth, not for earthly grandeur
and love, but for a peaceful life secluded from the world, a life in
twilight like the hostel.
It happens that a ray of light gleams in the dark cell of the anchorite
absorbed in prayer, or a bird alights on the window and sings its song;
the stern anchorite will smile in spite of himself, and a gentle,
sinless joy will pierce through the load of grief over his sins, like
water flowing from under a stone. The princess fancied she brought from
the outside world just such comfort as the ray of light or the bird. Her
gay, friendly smile, her gentle eyes, her voice, her jests, her whole
personality in fact, her little graceful figure always dressed in simple
black, must arouse in simple, austere people a feeling of tenderness and
joy. Every one, looking at her, must think: "God has sent us an angel. .
. ." And feeling that no one could help thinking this, she smiled still
more cordially, and tried to look like a bird.
After drinking tea and resting, she went for a walk. The sun was already
setting. From the monastery garden came a moist fragrance of freshly
watered mignonette, and from the church floated the soft singing of
men's voices, which seemed very pleasant and mournful in the distance.
It was the evening service. In the dark windows where the little lamps
glowed gently, in the shadows, in the figure of the old monk sitting at
the church door with a collecting-box, there was such unruffled peace
that the princess felt moved to tears.
Outside the gate, in the walk between the wall and the birch-trees where
there were benches, it was quite evening. The air grew rapidly darker
and darker. The princess went along the walk, sat on a seat, and sank
into thought.
She thought how good it would be to settle down for her whole life in
this monastery where life was as still and unruffled as a summer
evening; how good it would be to forget the ungrateful, dissipated
prince; to forget her immense estates, the creditors who worried her
every day, her misfortunes, her maid Dasha, who had looked at her
impertinently that morning. It would be nice to sit here on the bench
all her life and watch through the trunks of the birch-trees the evening
mist gathering in wreaths in the valley below; the rooks flying home in
a black cloud like a veil far, far away above the forest; two novices,
one astride a piebald horse, another on foot driving out the horses for
the night and rejoicing in their freedom, playing pranks like little
children; their youthful voices rang out musically in the still air, and
she could distinguish every word. It is nice to sit and listen to the
silence: at one moment the wind blows and stirs the tops of the birch-
trees, then a frog rustles in last year's leaves, then the clock on the
belfry strikes the quarter. . . . One might sit without moving, listen
and think, and think. . . .
An old woman passed by with a wallet on her back. The princess thought
that it would be nice to stop the old woman and to say something
friendly and cordial to her, to help her. . . . But the old woman turned
the corner without once looking round.
Not long afterwards a tall man with a grey beard and a straw hat came
along the walk. When he came up to the princess, he took off his hat and
bowed. From the bald patch on his head and his sharp, hooked nose the
princess recognised him as the doctor, Mihail Ivanovitch, who had been
in her service at Dubovki. She remembered that some one had told her
that his wife had died the year before, and she wanted to sympathise
with him, to console him.
"Doctor, I expect you don't recognise me?" she said with an affable
smile.
"Yes, Princess, I recognised you," said the doctor, taking off his hat
again.
"Oh, thank you; I was afraid that you, too, had forgotten your princess.
People only remember their enemies, but they forget their friends. Have
you, too, come to pray?"
"I am the doctor here, and I have to spend the night at the monastery
every Saturday."
"Well, how are you?" said the princess, sighing. "I hear that you have
lost your wife. What a calamity!"
"Yes, Princess, for me it is a great calamity."
"There's nothing for it! We must bear our troubles with resignation. Not
one hair of a man's head is lost without the Divine Will."
"Yes, Princess."
To the princess's friendly, gentle smile and her sighs the doctor
responded coldly and dryly: "Yes, Princess." And the expression of his
face was cold and dry.
"What else can I say to him?" she wondered.
"How long it is since we met!" she said. "Five years! How much water has
flowed under the bridge, how many changes in that time; it quite
frightens one to think of it! You know, I am married. . . . I am not a
countess now, but a princess. And by now I am separated from my husband
too."
"Yes, I heard so."
"God has sent me many trials. No doubt you have heard, too, that I am
almost ruined. My Dubovki, Sofyino, and Kiryakovo have all been sold for
my unhappy husband's debts. And I have only Baranovo and Mihaltsevo
left. It's terrible to look back: how many changes and misfortunes of
all kinds, how many mistakes!"
"Yes, Princess, many mistakes."
The princess was a little disconcerted. She knew her mistakes; they were
all of such a private character that no one but she could think or speak
of them. She could not resist asking:
"What mistakes are you thinking about?"
"You referred to them, so you know them . . ." answered the doctor, and
he smiled. "Why talk about them!"
"No; tell me, doctor. I shall be very grateful to you. And please don't
stand on ceremony with me. I love to hear the truth."
"I am not your judge, Princess."
"Not my judge! What a tone you take! You must know something about me.
Tell me!"
"If you really wish it, very well. Only I regret to say I'm not clever
at talking, and people can't always understand me."
The doctor thought a moment and began:
"A lot of mistakes; but the most important of them, in my opinion, was
the general spirit that prevailed on all your estates. You see, I don't
know how to express myself. I mean chiefly the lack of love, the
aversion for people that was felt in absolutely everything. Your whole
system of life was built upon that aversion. Aversion for the human
voice, for faces, for heads, steps . . . in fact, for everything that
makes up a human being. At all the doors and on the stairs there stand
sleek, rude, and lazy grooms in livery to prevent badly dressed persons
from entering the house; in the hall there are chairs with high backs so
that the footmen waiting there, during balls and receptions, may not
soil the walls with their heads; in every room there are thick carpets
that no human step may be heard; every one who comes in is infallibly
warned to speak as softly and as little as possible, and to say nothing
that might have a disagreeable effect on the nerves or the imagination.
And in your room you don't shake hands with any one or ask him to sit
down-- just as you didn't shake hands with me or ask me to sit down. . .
."
"By all means, if you like," said the princess, smiling and holding out
her hand. "Really, to be cross about such trifles. . . ."
"But I am not cross," laughed the doctor, but at once he flushed, took
off his hat, and waving it about, began hotly: "To be candid, I've long
wanted an opportunity to tell you all I think. . . . That is, I want to
tell you that you look upon the mass of mankind from the Napoleonic
standpoint as food for the cannon. But Napoleon had at least some idea;
you have nothing except aversion."
"I have an aversion for people?" smiled the princess, shrugging her
shoulders in astonishment. "I have!"
"Yes, you! You want facts? By all means. In Mihaltsevo three former
cooks of yours, who have gone blind in your kitchens from the heat of
the stove, are living upon charity. All the health and strength and good
looks that is found on your hundreds of thousands of acres is taken by
you and your parasites for your grooms, your footmen, and your coachmen.
All these two-legged cattle are trained to be flunkeys, overeat
themselves, grow coarse, lose the 'image and likeness,' in fact. . . .
Young doctors, agricultural experts, teachers, intellectual workers
generally--think of it!--are torn away from their honest work and forced
for a crust of bread to take part in all sorts of mummeries which make
every decent man feel ashamed! Some young men cannot be in your service
for three years without becoming hypocrites, toadies, sneaks. . . . Is
that a good thing? Your Polish superintendents, those abject spies, all
those Kazimers and Kaetans, go hunting about on your hundreds of
thousands of acres from morning to night, and to please you try to get
three skins off one ox. Excuse me, I speak disconnectedly, but that
doesn't matter. You don't look upon the simple people as human beings.
And even the princes, counts, and bishops who used to come and see you,
you looked upon simply as decorative figures, not as living beings. But
the worst of all, the thing that most revolts me, is having a fortune of
over a million and doing nothing for other people, nothing!"
The princess sat amazed, aghast, offended, not knowing what to say or
how to behave. She had never before been spoken to in such a tone. The
doctor's unpleasant, angry voice and his clumsy, faltering phrases made
a harsh clattering noise in her ears and her head. Then she began to
feel as though the gesticulating doctor was hitting her on the head with
his hat.
"It's not true!" she articulated softly, in an imploring voice. "I've
done a great deal of good for other people; you know it yourself!"
"Nonsense!" cried the doctor. "Can you possibly go on thinking of your
philanthropic work as something genuine and useful, and not a mere
mummery? It was a farce from beginning to end; it was playing at loving
your neighbour, the most open farce which even children and stupid
peasant women saw through! Take for instance your-- what was it
called?--house for homeless old women without relations, of which you
made me something like a head doctor, and of which you were the
patroness. Mercy on us! What a charming institution it was! A house was
built with parquet floors and a weathercock on the roof; a dozen old
women were collected from the villages and made to sleep under blankets
and sheets of Dutch linen, and given toffee to eat."
The doctor gave a malignant chuckle into his hat, and went on speaking
rapidly and stammering:
"It was a farce! The attendants kept the sheets and the blankets under
lock and key, for fear the old women should soil them--'Let the old
devil's pepper-pots sleep on the floor.' The old women did not dare to
sit down on the beds, to put on their jackets, to walk over the polished
floors. Everything was kept for show and hidden away from the old women
as though they were thieves, and the old women were clothed and fed on
the sly by other people's charity, and prayed to God night and day to be
released from their prison and from the canting exhortations of the
sleek rascals to whose care you committed them. And what did the
managers do? It was simply charming! About twice a week there would be
thirty-five thousand messages to say that the princess--that is, you--were
coming to the home next day. That meant that next day I had to abandon
my patients, dress up and be on parade. Very good; I arrive. The old
women, in everything clean and new, are already drawn up in a row,
waiting. Near them struts the old garrison rat--the superintendent with
his mawkish, sneaking smile. The old women yawn and exchange glances,
but are afraid to complain. We wait. The junior steward gallops up. Half
an hour later the senior steward; then the superintendent of the
accounts' office, then another, and then another of them . . . they keep
arriving endlessly. They all have mysterious, solemn faces. We wait and
wait, shift from one leg to another, look at the clock--all this in
monumental silence because we all hate each other like poison. One hour
passes, then a second, and then at last the carriage is seen in the
distance, and . . . and . . ."
The doctor went off into a shrill laugh and brought out in a shrill
voice:
"You get out of the carriage, and the old hags, at the word of command
from the old garrison rat, begin chanting: 'The Glory of our Lord in
Zion the tongue of man cannot express. . .' A pretty scene, wasn't it?"
The doctor went off into a bass chuckle, and waved his hand as though to
signify that he could not utter another word for laughing. He laughed
heavily, harshly, with clenched teeth, as ill-natured people laugh; and
from his voice, from his face, from his glittering, rather insolent eyes
it could be seen that he had a profound contempt for the princess, for
the home, and for the old women. There was nothing amusing or laughable
in all that he described so clumsily and coarsely, but he laughed with
satisfaction, even with delight.
"And the school?" he went on, panting from laughter. "Do you remember
how you wanted to teach peasant children yourself? You must have taught
them very well, for very soon the children all ran away, so that they
had to be thrashed and bribed to come and be taught. And you remember
how you wanted to feed with your own hands the infants whose mothers
were working in the fields. You went about the village crying because
the infants were not at your disposal, as the mothers would take them to
the fields with them. Then the village foreman ordered the mothers by
turns to leave their infants behind for your entertainment. A strange
thing! They all ran away from your benevolence like mice from a cat! And
why was it? It's very simple. Not because our people are ignorant and
ungrateful, as you always explained it to yourself, but because in all
your fads, if you'll excuse the word, there wasn't a ha'p'orth of love
and kindness! There was nothing but the desire to amuse yourself with
living puppets, nothing else. . . . A person who does not feel the
difference between a human being and a lap-dog ought not to go in for
philanthropy. I assure you, there's a great difference between human
beings and lap-dogs!"
The princess's heart was beating dreadfully; there was a thudding in her
ears, and she still felt as though the doctor were beating her on the
head with his hat. The doctor talked quickly, excitedly, and uncouthly,
stammering and gesticulating unnecessarily. All she grasped was that she
was spoken to by a coarse, ill-bred, spiteful, and ungrateful man; but
what he wanted of her and what he was talking about, she could not
understand.
"Go away!" she said in a tearful voice, putting up her hands to protect
her head from the doctor's hat; "go away!"
"And how you treat your servants!" the doctor went on, indignantly. "You
treat them as the lowest scoundrels, and don't look upon them as human
beings. For example, allow me to ask, why did you dismiss me? For ten
years I worked for your father and afterwards for you, honestly, without
vacations or holidays. I gained the love of all for more than seventy
miles round, and suddenly one fine day I am informed that I am no longer
wanted. What for? I've no idea to this day. I, a doctor of medicine, a
gentleman by birth, a student of the Moscow University, father of a
family--am such a petty, insignificant insect that you can kick me out
without explaining the reason! Why stand on ceremony with me! I heard
afterwards that my wife went without my knowledge three times to
intercede with you for me--you wouldn't receive her. I am told she cried
in your hall. And I shall never forgive her for it, never!"
The doctor paused and clenched his teeth, making an intense effort to
think of something more to say, very unpleasant and vindictive. He
thought of something, and his cold, frowning face suddenly brightened.