I
THE Don railway. A quiet, cheerless station, white and solitary in
the steppe, with its walls baking in the sun, without a speck of
shade, and, it seems, without a human being. The train goes on after
leaving one here; the sound of it is scarcely audible and dies away
at last. Outside the station it is a desert, and there are no horses
but one's own. One gets into the carriage--which is so pleasant
after the train--and is borne along the road through the steppe,
and by degrees there are unfolded before one views such as one does
not see near Moscow--immense, endless, fascinating in their
monotony. The steppe, the steppe, and nothing more; in the distance
an ancient barrow or a windmill; ox-waggons laden with coal trail
by. . . . Solitary birds fly low over the plain, and a drowsy feeling
comes with the monotonous beat of their wings. It is hot. Another
hour or so passes, and still the steppe, the steppe, and still in
the distance the barrow. The driver tells you something, some long
unnecessary tale, pointing into the distance with his whip. And
tranquillity takes possession of the soul; one is loth to think of
the past. . . .
A carriage with three horses had been sent to fetch Vera Ivanovna
Kardin. The driver put in her luggage and set the harness to rights.
"Everything just as it always has been," said Vera, looking about
her. "I was a little girl when I was here last, ten years ago. I
remember old Boris came to fetch me then. Is he still living, I
wonder?"
The driver made no reply, but, like a Little Russian, looked at her
angrily and clambered on to the box.
It was a twenty-mile drive from the station, and Vera, too, abandoned
herself to the charm of the steppe, forgot the past, and thought
only of the wide expanse, of the freedom. Healthy, clever, beautiful,
and young--she was only three-and-twenty--she had hitherto
lacked nothing in her life but just this space and freedom.
The steppe, the steppe. . . . The horses trotted, the sun rose
higher and higher; and it seemed to Vera that never in her childhood
had the steppe been so rich, so luxuriant in June; the wild flowers
were green, yellow, lilac, white, and a fragrance rose from them
and from the warmed earth; and there were strange blue birds along
the roadside. . . . Vera had long got out of the habit of praying,
but now, struggling with drowsiness, she murmured:
"Lord, grant that I may be happy here."
And there was peace and sweetness in her soul, and she felt as
though she would have been glad to drive like that all her life,
looking at the steppe.
Suddenly there was a deep ravine overgrown with oak saplings and
alder-trees; there was a moist feeling in the air--there must
have been a spring at the bottom. On the near side, on the very
edge of the ravine, a covey of partridges rose noisily. Vera
remembered that in old days they used to go for evening walks to
this ravine; so it must be near home! And now she could actually
see the poplars, the barn, black smoke rising on one side--they
were burning old straw. And there was Auntie Dasha coming to meet
her and waving her handkerchief; grandfather was on the terrace.
Oh dear, how happy she was!
"My darling, my darling!" cried her aunt, shrieking as though she
were in hysterics. "Our real mistress has come! You must understand
you are our mistress, you are our queen! Here everything is yours!
My darling, my beauty, I am not your aunt, but your willing slave!"
Vera had no relations but her aunt and her grandfather; her mother
had long been dead; her father, an engineer, had died three months
before at Kazan, on his way from Siberia. Her grandfather had a big
grey beard. He was stout, red-faced, and asthmatic, and walked
leaning on a cane and sticking his stomach out. Her aunt, a lady
of forty-two, drawn in tightly at the waist and fashionably dressed
with sleeves high on the shoulder, evidently tried to look young
and was still anxious to be charming; she walked with tiny steps
with a wriggle of her spine.
"Will you love us?" she said, embracing Vera, "You are not proud?"
At her grandfather's wish there was a thanksgiving service, then
they spent a long while over dinner--and Vera's new life began.
She was given the best room. All the rugs in the house had been put
in it, and a great many flowers; and when at night she lay down in
her snug, wide, very soft bed and covered herself with a silk quilt
that smelt of old clothes long stored away, she laughed with pleasure.
Auntie Dasha came in for a minute to wish her good-night.
"Here you are home again, thank God," she said, sitting down on the
bed. "As you see, we get along very well and have everything we
want. There's only one thing: your grandfather is in a poor way! A
terribly poor way! He is short of breath and he has begun to lose
his memory. And you remember how strong, how vigorous, he used to
be! There was no doing anything with him. . . . In old days, if the
servants didn't please him or anything else went wrong, he would
jump up at once and shout: 'Twenty-five strokes! The birch!' But
now he has grown milder and you never hear him. And besides, times
are changed, my precious; one mayn't beat them nowadays. Of course,
they oughtn't to be beaten, but they need looking after."
"And are they beaten now, auntie?" asked Vera.
"The steward beats them sometimes, but I never do, bless their
hearts! And your grandfather sometimes lifts his stick from old
habit, but he never beats them."
Auntie Dasha yawned and crossed herself over her mouth and her right
ear.
"It's not dull here?" Vera inquired.
"What shall I say? There are no landowners living here now, but
there have been works built near, darling, and there are lots of
engineers, doctors, and mine managers. Of course, we have theatricals
and concerts, but we play cards more than anything. They come to
us, too. Dr. Neshtchapov from the works comes to see us--such a
handsome, interesting man! He fell in love with your photograph. I
made up my mind: he is Verotchka's destiny, I thought. He's young,
handsome, he has means--a good match, in fact. And of course
you're a match for any one. You're of good family. The place is
mortgaged, it's true, but it's in good order and not neglected;
there is my share in it, but it will all come to you; I am your
willing slave. And my brother, your father, left you fifteen thousand
roubles. . . . But I see you can't keep your eyes open. Sleep, my
child."
Next day Vera spent a long time walking round the house. The garden,
which was old and unattractive, lying inconveniently upon the slope,
had no paths, and was utterly neglected; probably the care of it
was regarded as an unnecessary item in the management. There were
numbers of grass-snakes. Hoopoes flew about under the trees calling
"Oo-too-toot!" as though they were trying to remind her of something.
At the bottom of the hill there was a river overgrown with tall
reeds, and half a mile beyond the river was the village. From the
garden Vera went out into the fields; looking into the distance,
thinking of her new life in her own home, she kept trying to grasp
what was in store for her. The space, the lovely peace of the steppe,
told her that happiness was near at hand, and perhaps was here
already; thousands of people, in fact, would have said: "What
happiness to be young, healthy, well-educated, to be living on one's
own estate!" And at the same time the endless plain, all alike,
without one living soul, frightened her, and at moments it was clear
to her that its peaceful green vastness would swallow up her life
and reduce it to nothingness. She was very young, elegant, fond of
life; she had finished her studies at an aristocratic boarding-school,
had learnt three languages, had read a great deal, had travelled
with her father--and could all this have been meant to lead to
nothing but settling down in a remote country-house in the steppe,
and wandering day after day from the garden into the fields and
from the fields into the garden to while away the time, and then
sitting at home listening to her grandfather's breathing? But what
could she do? Where could she go? She could find no answer, and as
she was returning home she doubted whether she would be happy here,
and thought that driving from the station was far more interesting
than living here.
Dr. Neshtchapov drove over from the works. He was a doctor, but
three years previously he had taken a share in the works, and had
become one of the partners; and now he no longer looked upon medicine
as his chief vocation, though he still practised. In appearance he
was a pale, dark man in a white waistcoat, with a good figure; but
to guess what there was in his heart and his brain was difficult.
He kissed Auntie Dasha's hand on greeting her, and was continually
leaping up to set a chair or give his seat to some one. He was very
silent and grave all the while, and, when he did speak, it was for
some reason impossible to hear and understand his first sentence,
though he spoke correctly and not in a low voice.
"You play the piano?" he asked Vera, and immediately leapt up, as
she had dropped her handkerchief.
He stayed from midday to midnight without speaking, and Vera found
him very unattractive. She thought that a white waistcoat in the
country was bad form, and his elaborate politeness, his manners,
and his pale, serious face with dark eyebrows, were mawkish; and
it seemed to her that he was perpetually silent, probably because
he was stupid. When he had gone her aunt said enthusiastically:
"Well? Isn't he charming?"