was growing used to the peasants, and I felt more and more drawn to
them. For the most part they were nervous, irritable, downtrodden
people; they were people whose imagination had been stifled, ignorant,
with a poor, dingy outlook on life, whose thoughts were ever the same-of
the grey earth, of grey days, of black bread, people who cheated, but
like birds hiding nothing but their head behind the tree-people who
could not count. They would not come to mow for us for twenty roubles,
but they came for half a pail of vodka, though for twenty roubles they
could have bought four pails. There really was filth and drunkenness and
foolishness and deceit, but with all that one yet felt that the life of
the peasants rested on a firm, sound foundation. However uncouth a wild
animal the peasant following the plough seemed, and however he might
stupefy himself with vodka, still, looking at him more closely, one felt
that there was in him what was needed, something very important, which
was lacking in Masha and in the doctor, for instance, and that was that
he believed the chief thing on earth was truth and justice, and that his
salvation, and that of the whole people, was only to be found in truth
and justice, and so more than anything in the world he loved just
dealing. I told my wife she saw the spots on the glass, but not the
glass itself; she said nothing in reply, or hummed like Stepan "oo-loo-
loo-loo." When this good-hearted and clever woman turned pale with
indignation, and with a quiver in her voice spoke to the doctor of the
drunkenness and dishonesty, it perplexed me, and I was struck by the
shortness of her memory. How could she forget that her father the
engineer drank too, and drank heavily, and that the money with which
Dubetchnya had been bought had been acquired by a whole series of
shameless, impudent dishonesties? How could she forget it? XIV
My sister, too, was leading a life of her own which she carefully hid
from me. She was often whispering with Masha. When I went up to her she
seemed to shrink into herself, and there was a guilty, imploring look in
her eyes; evidently there was something going on in her heart of which
she was afraid or ashamed. So as to avoid meeting me in the garden, or
being left alone with me, she always kept close to Masha, and I rarely
had an opportunity of talking to her except at dinner.
One evening I was walking quietly through the garden on my way back from
the building. It was beginning to get dark. Without noticing me, or
hearing my step, my sister was walking near a spreading old apple-tree,
absolutely noiselessly as though she were a phantom. She was dressed in
black, and was walking rapidly backwards and forwards on the same track,
looking at the ground. An apple fell from the tree; she started at the
sound, stood still and pressed her hands to her temples. At that moment
I went up to her.
In a rush of tender affection which suddenly flooded my heart, with
tears in my eyes, suddenly remembering my mother and our childhood, I
put my arm round her shoulders and kissed her.
"What is the matter?" I asked her. "You are unhappy; I have seen it for
a long time. Tell me what's wrong?"
"I am frightened," she said, trembling.
"What is it?" I insisted. "For God's sake, be open!"
"I will, I will be open; I will tell you the whole truth. To hide it
from you is so hard, so agonizing. Misail, I love . . ." she went on in
a whisper, "I love him . . . I love him. . . . I am happy, but why am I
so frightened?"
There was the sound of footsteps; between the trees appeared Dr. Blagovo
in his silk shirt with his high top boots. Evidently they had arranged
to meet near the apple-tree. Seeing him, she rushed impulsively towards
him with a cry of pain as though he were being taken from her.
"Vladimir! Vladimir!"
She clung to him and looked greedily into his face, and only then I
noticed how pale and thin she had become of late. It was particularly
noticeable from her lace collar which I had known for so long, and which
now hung more loosely than ever before about her thin, long neck. The
doctor was disconcerted, but at once recovered himself, and, stroking
her hair, said:
"There, there. . . . Why so nervous? You see, I'm here."
We were silent, looking with embarrassment at each other, then we walked
on, the three of us together, and I heard the doctor say to me:
"Civilized life has not yet begun among us. Old men console themselves
by making out that if there is nothing now, there was something in the
forties or the sixties; that's the old: you and I are young; our brains
have not yet been touched by marasmus senilis; we cannot comfort
ourselves with such illusions. The beginning of Russia was in 862, but
the beginning of civilized Russia has not come yet."
But I did not grasp the meaning of these reflections. It was somehow
strange, I could not believe it, that my sister was in love, that she
was walking and holding the arm of a stranger and looking tenderly at
him. My sister, this nervous, frightened, crushed, fettered creature,
loved a man who was married and had children! I felt sorry for
something, but what exactly I don't know; the presence of the doctor was
for some reason distasteful to me now, and I could not imagine what
would come of this love of theirs. XV
Masha and I drove to Kurilovka to the dedication of the school.
"Autumn, autumn, autumn, . . ." said Masha softly, looking away. "Summer
is over. There are no birds and nothing is green but the willows."
Yes, summer was over. There were fine, warm days, but it was fresh in
the morning, and the shepherds went out in their sheepskins already; and
in our garden the dew did not dry off the asters all day long. There
were plaintive sounds all the time, and one could not make out whether
they came from the shutters creaking on their rusty hinges, or from the
flying cranes-and one's heart felt light, and one was eager for life.
"The summer is over," said Masha. "Now you and I can balance our
accounts. We have done a lot of work, a lot of thinking; we are the
better for it-all honour and glory to us-we have succeeded in self-
improvement; but have our successes had any perceptible influence on the
life around us, have they brought any benefit to anyone whatever? No.
Ignorance, physical uncleanliness, drunkenness, an appallingly high
infant mortality, everything remains as it was, and no one is the better
for your having ploughed and sown, and my having wasted money and read
books. Obviously we have been working only for ourselves and have had
advanced ideas only for ourselves." Such reasonings perplexed me, and I
did not know what to think.
"We have been sincere from beginning to end," said I, "and if anyone is
sincere he is right."
"Who disputes it? We were right, but we haven't succeeded in properly
accomplishing what we were right in. To begin with, our external methods
themselves-aren't they mistaken? You want to be of use to men, but by
the very fact of your buying an estate, from the very start you cut
yourself off from any possibility of doing anything useful for them.
Then if you work, dress, eat like a peasant you sanctify, as it were, by
your authority, their heavy, clumsy dress, their horrible huts, their
stupid beards. . . . On the other hand, if we suppose that you work for
long, long years, your whole life, that in the end some practical
results are obtained, yet what are they, your results, what can they do
against such elemental forces as wholesale ignorance, hunger, cold,
degeneration? A drop in the ocean! Other methods of struggle are needed,
strong, bold, rapid! If one really wants to be of use one must get out
of the narrow circle of ordinary social work, and try to act direct upon
the mass! What is wanted, first of all, is a loud, energetic propaganda.
Why is it that art-music, for instance-is so living, so popular, and in
reality so powerful? Because the musician or the singer affects
thousands at once. Precious, precious art!" she went on, looking
dreamily at the sky. "Art gives us wings and carries us far, far away!
Anyone who is sick of filth, of petty, mercenary interests, anyone who
is revolted, wounded, and indignant, can find peace and satisfaction
only in the beautiful."
When we drove into Kurilovka the weather was bright and joyous.
Somewhere they were threshing; there was a smell of rye straw. A
mountain ash was bright red behind the hurdle fences, and all the trees
wherever one looked were ruddy or golden. They were ringing the bells,
they were carrying the ikons to the school, and we could hear them sing:
"Holy Mother, our Defender," and how limpid the air was, and how high
the doves were flying.
The service was being held in the classroom. Then the peasants of
Kurilovka brought Masha the ikon, and the peasants of Dubetchnya offered
her a big loaf and a gilt salt cellar. And Masha broke into sobs.
"If anything has been said that shouldn't have been or anything done not
to your liking, forgive us," said an old man, and he bowed down to her
and to me.
As we drove home Masha kept looking round at the school; the green roof,
which I had painted, and which was glistening in the sun, remained in
sight for a long while. And I felt that the look Masha turned upon it
now was one of farewell. XVI
In the evening she got ready to go to the town. Of late she had taken to
going often to the town and staying the night there. In her absence I
could not work, my hands felt weak and limp; our huge courtyard seemed a
dreary, repulsive, empty hole. The garden was full of angry noises, and
without her the house, the trees, the horses were no longer "ours."
I did not go out of the house, but went on sitting at her table beside
her bookshelf with the books on land work, those old favourites no
longer wanted and looking at me now so shamefacedly. For whole hours
together, while it struck seven, eight, nine, while the autumn night,
black as soot, came on outside, I kept examining her old glove, or the
pen with which she always wrote, or her little scissors. I did nothing,
and realized clearly that all I had done before, ploughing, mowing,
chopping, had only been because she wished it. And if she had sent me to
clean a deep well, where I had to stand up to my waist in deep water, I
should have crawled into the well without considering whether it was
necessary or not. And now when she was not near, Dubetchnya, with its
ruins, its untidiness, its banging shutters, with its thieves by day and
by night, seemed to me a chaos in which any work would be useless.
Besides, what had I to work for here, why anxiety and thought about the
future, if I felt that the earth was giving way under my feet, that I
had played my part in Dubetchnya, and that the fate of the books on
farming was awaiting me too? Oh, what misery it was at night, in hours
of solitude, when I was listening every minute in alarm, as though I
were expecting someone to shout that it was time for me to go away! I
did not grieve for Dubetchnya. I grieved for my love which, too, was
threatened with its autumn. What an immense happiness it is to love and
be loved, and how awful to feel that one is slipping down from that high
pinnacle!
Masha returned from the town towards the evening of the next day. She
was displeased with something, but she concealed it, and only said, why
was it all the window frames had been put in for the winter it was
enough to suffocate one. I took out two frames. We were not hungry, but
we sat down to supper.
"Go and wash your hands," said my wife; "you smell of putty."
She had brought some new illustrated papers from the town, and we looked
at them together after supper. There were supplements with fashion
plates and patterns. Masha looked through them casually, and was putting
them aside to examine them properly later on; but one dress, with a flat
skirt as full as a bell and large sleeves, interested her, and she
looked at it for a minute gravely and attentively.
"That's not bad," she said.
"Yes, that dress would suit you beautifully," I said, "beautifully."
And looking with emotion at the dress, admiring that patch of grey
simply because she liked it, I went on tenderly:
"A charming, exquisite dress! Splendid, glorious, Masha! My precious
Masha!"
And tears dropped on the fashion plate.
"Splendid Masha . . ." I muttered; "sweet, precious Masha. . . ."
She went to bed, while I sat another hour looking at the illustrations.
"It's a pity you took out the window frames," she said from the bedroom,
"I am afraid it may be cold. Oh, dear, what a draught there is!"
I read something out of the column of odds and ends, a receipt for
making cheap ink, and an account of the biggest diamond in the world. I
came again upon the fashion plate of the dress she liked, and I imagined
her at a ball, with a fan, bare shoulders, brilliant, splendid, with a
full understanding of painting, music, literature, and how small and how
brief my part seemed!
Our meeting, our marriage, had been only one of the episodes of which
there would be many more in the life of this vital, richly gifted woman.
All the best in the world, as I have said already, was at her service,
and she received it absolutely for nothing, and even ideas and the
intellectual movement in vogue served simply for her recreation, giving
variety to her life, and I was only the sledge-driver who drove her from
one entertainment to another. Now she did not need me. She would take
flight, and I should be alone.
And as though in response to my thought, there came a despairing scream
from the garden.
"He-e-elp!"
It was a shrill, womanish voice, and as though to mimic it the wind
whistled in the chimney on the same shrill note. Half a minute passed,
and again through the noise of the wind, but coming, it seemed, from the
other end of the yard:
"He-e-elp!"
"Misail, do you hear?" my wife asked me softly. "Do you hear?"
She came out from the bedroom in her nightgown, with her hair down, and
listened, looking at the dark window.
"Someone is being murdered," she said. "That is the last straw."
I took my gun and went out. It was very dark outside, the wind was high,
and it was difficult to stand. I went to the gate and listened, the
trees roared, the wind whistled and, probably at the feeble-minded
peasant's, a dog howled lazily. Outside the gates the darkness was
absolute, not a light on the railway-line. And near the lodge, which a
year before had been the office, suddenly sounded a smothered scream:
"He-e-elp!"
"Who's there?" I called.
There were two people struggling. One was thrusting the other out, while
the other was resisting, and both were breathing heavily.
"Leave go," said one, and I recognized Ivan Tcheprakov; it was he who
was shrieking in a shrill, womanish voice: "Let go, you damned brute, or
I'll bite your hand off."
The other I recognized as Moisey. I separated them, and as I did so I
could not resist hitting Moisey two blows in the face. He fell down,
then got up again, and I hit him once more.
"He tried to kill me," he muttered. "He was trying to get at his mamma's
chest. . . . I want to lock him up in the lodge for security."
Tcheprakov was drunk and did not recognize me; he kept drawing deep
breaths, as though he were just going to shout "help" again.
I left them and went back to the house; my wife was lying on her bed;
she had dressed. I told her what had happened in the yard, and did not
conceal the fact that I had hit Moisey.
"It's terrible to live in the country," she said.
"And what a long night it is. Oh dear, if only it were over!"
"He-e-elp!" we heard again, a little later.
"I'll go and stop them," I said.
"No, let them bite each other's throats," she said with an expression of
disgust.
She was looking up at the ceiling, listening, while I sat beside her,
not daring to speak to her, feeling as though I were to blame for their
shouting "help" in the yard and for the night's seeming so long.
We were silent, and I waited impatiently for a gleam of light at the
window, and Masha looked all the time as though she had awakened from a
trance and now was marvelling how she, so clever, and well-educated, so
elegant, had come into this pitiful, provincial, empty hole among a crew
of petty, insignificant people, and how she could have so far forgotten
herself as ever to be attracted by one of these people, and for more
than six months to have been his wife. It seemed to me that at that
moment it did not matter to her whether it was I, or Moisey, or
Tcheprakov; everything for her was merged in that savage drunken "help"-
I and our marriage, and our work together, and the mud and slush of
autumn, and when she sighed or moved into a more comfortable position I
read in her face: "Oh, that morning would come quickly!"
In the morning she went away. I spent another three days at Dubetchnya
expecting her, then I packed all our things in one room, locked it, and
walked to the town. It was already evening when I rang at the
engineer's, and the street lamps were burning in Great Dvoryansky
Street. Pavel told me there was no one at home; Viktor Ivanitch had gone
to Petersburg, and Mariya Viktorovna was probably at the rehearsal at
the Azhogins'. I remember with what emotion I went on to the Azhogins',
how my heart throbbed and fluttered as I mounted the stairs, and stood
waiting a long while on the landing at the top, not daring to enter that
temple of the muses! In the big room there were lighted candles
everywhere, on a little table, on the piano, and on the stage,
everywhere in threes; and the first performance was fixed for the
thirteenth, and now the first rehearsal was on a Monday, an unlucky day.
All part of the war against superstition! All the devotees of the scenic
art were gathered together; the eldest, the middle, and the youngest
sisters were walking about the stage, reading their parts in exercise
books. Apart from all the rest stood Radish, motionless, with the side
of his head pressed to the wall as he gazed with adoration at the stage,
waiting for the rehearsal to begin. Everything as it used to be.
I was making my way to my hostess; I had to pay my respects to her, but
suddenly everyone said "Hush!" and waved me to step quietly. There was a
silence. The lid of the piano was raised; a lady sat down at it screwing
up her short-sighted eyes at the music, and my Masha walked up to the
piano, in a low-necked dress, looking beautiful, but with a special, new
sort of beauty not in the least like the Masha who used to come and meet
me in the spring at the mill. She sang: "Why do I love the radiant
night?"
It was the first time during our whole acquaintance that I had heard her
sing. She had a fine, mellow, powerful voice, and while she sang I felt
as though I were eating a ripe, sweet, fragrant melon. She ended, the
audience applauded, and she smiled, very much pleased, making play with
her eyes, turning over the music, smoothing her skirts, like a bird that
has at last broken out of its cage and preens its wings in freedom. Her
hair was arranged over her ears, and she had an unpleasant, defiant
expression in her face, as though she wanted to throw down a challenge
to us all, or to shout to us as she did to her horses: "Hey, there, my
beauties!"
And she must at that moment have been very much like her grandfather the
sledge-driver.
"You here too?" she said, giving me her hand. "Did you hear me sing?
Well, what did you think of it?" and without waiting for my answer she
went on: "It's a very good thing you are here. I am going to-night to
Petersburg for a short time. You'll let me go, won't you?"
At midnight I went with her to the station. She embraced me
affectionately, probably feeling grateful to me for not asking
unnecessary questions, and she promised to write to me, and I held her
hands a long time, and kissed them, hardly able to restrain my tears and
not uttering a word.
And when she had gone I stood watching the retreating lights, caressing
her in imagination and softly murmuring:
"My darling Masha, glorious Masha. . . ."
I spent the night at Karpovna's, and next morning I was at work with
Radish, re-covering the furniture of a rich merchant who was marrying
his daughter to a doctor. XVII
My sister came after dinner on Sunday and had tea with me.
"I read a great deal now," she said, showing me the books which she had
fetched from the public library on her way to me. "Thanks to your wife
and to Vladimir, they have awakened me to self-realization. They have
been my salvation; they have made me feel myself a human being. In old
days I used to lie awake at night with worries of all sorts, thinking
what a lot of sugar we had used in the week, or hoping the cucumbers
would not be too salt. And now, too, I lie awake at night, but I have
different thoughts. I am distressed that half my life has been passed in
such a foolish, cowardly way. I despise my past; I am ashamed of it. And
I look upon our father now as my enemy. Oh, how grateful I am to your
wife! And Vladimir! He is such a wonderful person! They have opened my
eyes!"
"That's bad that you don't sleep at night," I said.
"Do you think I am ill? Not at all. Vladimir sounded me, and said I was
perfectly well. But health is not what matters, it is not so important.
Tell me: am I right?"
She needed moral support, that was obvious. Masha had gone away. Dr.
Blagovo was in Petersburg, and there was no one left in the town but me,
to tell her she was right. She looked intently into my face, trying to
read my secret thoughts, and if I were absorbed or silent in her
presence she thought this was on her account, and was grieved. I always
had to be on my guard, and when she asked me whether she was right I
hastened to assure her that she was right, and that I had a deep respect
for her.
"Do you know they have given me a part at the Azhogins'?" she went on.
"I want to act on the stage, I want to live-in fact, I mean to drain the
full cup. I have no talent, none, and the part is only ten lines, but
still this is immeasurably finer and loftier than pouring out tea five
times a day, and looking to see if the cook has eaten too much. Above
all, let my father see I am capable of protest."
After tea she lay down on my bed, and lay for a little while with her
eyes closed, looking very pale.
"What weakness," she said, getting up. "Vladimir says all city-bred
women and girls are anæmic from doing nothing. What a clever man
Vladimir is! He is right, absolutely right. We must work!"
Two days later she came to the Azhogins' with her manuscript for the
rehearsal. She was wearing a black dress with a string of coral round
her neck, and a brooch that in the distance was like a pastry puff, and
in her ears earrings sparkling with brilliants. When I looked at her I
felt uncomfortable. I was struck by her lack of taste. That she had very
inappropriately put on earrings and brilliants, and that she was
strangely dressed, was remarked by other people too; I saw smiles on
people's faces, and heard someone say with a laugh: "Kleopatra of
Egypt."
She was trying to assume society manners, to be unconstrained and at her
ease, and so seemed artificial and strange. She had lost simplicity and
sweetness.
"I told father just now that I was going to the rehearsal," she began,
coming up to me, "and he shouted that he would not give me his blessing,
and actually almost struck me. Only fancy, I don't know my part," she
said, looking at her manuscript. "I am sure to make a mess of it. So be
it, the die is cast," she went on in intense excitement. "The die is
cast. . . ."
It seemed to her that everyone was looking at her, and that all were
amazed at the momentous step she had taken, that everyone was expecting
something special of her, and it would have been impossible to convince
her that no one was paying attention to people so petty and
insignificant as she and I were.
She had nothing to do till the third act, and her part, that of a
visitor, a provincial crony, consisted only in standing at the door as
though listening, and then delivering a brief monologue. In the interval
before her appearance, an hour and a half at least, while they were
moving about on the stage reading their parts, drinking tea and arguing,
she did not leave my side, and was all the time muttering her part and
nervously crumpling up the manuscript. And imagining that everyone was
looking at her and waiting for her appearance, with a trembling hand she
smoothed back her hair and said to me:
"I shall certainly make a mess of it. . . . What a load on my heart, if
only you knew! I feel frightened, as though I were just going to be led
to execution."
At last her turn came.
"Kleopatra Alexyevna, it's your cue!" said the stage manager.
She came forward into the middle of the stage with an expression of
horror on her face, looking ugly and angular, and for half a minute
stood as though in a trance, perfectly motionless, and only her big
earrings shook in her ears.
"The first time you can read it," said someone.
It was clear to me that she was trembling, and trembling so much that
she could not speak, and could not unfold her manuscript, and that she
was incapable of acting her part; and I was already on the point of
going to her and saying something, when she suddenly dropped on her
knees in the middle of the stage and broke into loud sobs.
All was commotion and hubbub. I alone stood still, leaning against the
side scene, overwhelmed by what had happened, not understanding and not
knowing what to do. I saw them lift her up and lead her away. I saw
Anyuta Blagovo come up to me; I had not seen her in the room before, and
she seemed to have sprung out of the earth. She was wearing her hat and
veil, and, as always, had an air of having come only for a moment.
"I told her not to take a part," she said angrily, jerking out each word
abruptly and turning crimson. "It's insanity! You ought to have
prevented her!"
Madame Azhogin, in a short jacket with short sleeves, with cigarette ash
on her breast, looking thin and flat, came rapidly towards me.