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.
"Take your attitude to this monastery!" he said with avidity. "You've
never spared any one, and the holier the place, the more chance of
its suffering from your loving-kindness and angelic sweetness. Why
do you come here? What do you want with the monks here, allow me
to ask you? What is Hecuba to you or you to Hecuba? It's another
farce, another amusement for you, another sacrilege against human
dignity, and nothing more. Why, you don't believe in the monks'
God; you've a God of your own in your heart, whom you've evolved
for yourself at spiritualist séances. You look with condescension
upon the ritual of the Church; you don't go to mass or vespers; you
sleep till midday. . . . Why do you come here? . . . You come with
a God of your own into a monastery you have nothing to do with, and
you imagine that the monks look upon it as a very great honour. To
be sure they do! You'd better ask, by the way, what your visits
cost the monastery. You were graciously pleased to arrive here this
evening, and a messenger from your estate arrived on horseback the
day before yesterday to warn them of your coming. They were the
whole day yesterday getting the rooms ready and expecting you. This
morning your advance-guard arrived--an insolent maid, who keeps
running across the courtyard, rustling her skirts, pestering them
with questions, giving orders. . . . I can't endure it! The monks
have been on the lookout all day, for if you were not met with due
ceremony, there would be trouble! You'd complain to the bishop!
'The monks don't like me, your holiness; I don't know what I've
done to displease them. It's true I'm a great sinner, but I'm so
unhappy!' Already one monastery has been in hot water over you. The
Father Superior is a busy, learned man; he hasn't a free moment,
and you keep sending for him to come to your rooms. Not a trace of
respect for age or for rank! If at least you were a bountiful giver
to the monastery, one wouldn't resent it so much, but all this time
the monks have not received a hundred roubles from you!"
Whenever people worried the princess, misunderstood her, or mortified
her, and when she did not know what to say or do, she usually began
to cry. And on this occasion, too, she ended by hiding her face in
her hands and crying aloud in a thin treble like a child. The doctor
suddenly stopped and looked at her. His face darkened and grew
stern.
"Forgive me, Princess," he said in a hollow voice. "I've given way
to a malicious feeling and forgotten myself. It was not right."
And coughing in an embarrassed way, he walked away quickly, without
remembering to put his hat on.
Stars were already twinkling in the sky. The moon must have been
rising on the further side of the monastery, for the sky was clear,
soft, and transparent. Bats were flitting noiselessly along the
white monastery wall.
The clock slowly struck three quarters, probably a quarter to nine.
The princess got up and walked slowly to the gate. She felt wounded
and was crying, and she felt that the trees and the stars and even
the bats were pitying her, and that the clock struck musically only
to express its sympathy with her. She cried and thought how nice
it would be to go into a monastery for the rest of her life. On
still summer evenings she would walk alone through the avenues,
insulted, injured, misunderstood by people, and only God and the
starry heavens would see the martyr's tears. The evening service
was still going on in the church. The princess stopped and listened
to the singing; how beautiful the singing sounded in the still
darkness! How sweet to weep and suffer to the sound of that singing!
Going into her rooms, she looked at her tear-stained face in the
glass and powdered it, then she sat down to supper. The monks knew
that she liked pickled sturgeon, little mushrooms, Malaga and plain
honey-cakes that left a taste of cypress in the mouth, and every
time she came they gave her all these dishes. As she ate the mushrooms
and drank the Malaga, the princess dreamed of how she would be
finally ruined and deserted--how all her stewards, bailiffs,
clerks, and maid-servants for whom she had done so much, would be
false to her, and begin to say rude things; how people all the world
over would set upon her, speak ill of her, jeer at her. She would
renounce her title, would renounce society and luxury, and would
go into a convent without one word of reproach to any one; she would
pray for her enemies--and then they would all understand her and
come to beg her forgiveness, but by that time it would be too
late. . . .
After supper she knelt down in the corner before the ikon and read
two chapters of the Gospel. Then her maid made her bed and she got
into it. Stretching herself under the white quilt, she heaved a
sweet, deep sigh, as one sighs after crying, closed her eyes, and
began to fall asleep.
In the morning she waked up and glanced at her watch. It was half-past
nine. On the carpet near the bed was a bright, narrow streak of
sunlight from a ray which came in at the window and dimly lighted
up the room. Flies were buzzing behind the black curtain at the
window. "It's early," thought the princess, and she closed her eyes.
Stretching and lying snug in her bed, she recalled her meeting
yesterday with the doctor and all the thoughts with which she had
gone to sleep the night before: she remembered she was unhappy.
Then she thought of her husband living in Petersburg, her stewards,
doctors, neighbours, the officials of her acquaintance . . . a long
procession of familiar masculine faces passed before her imagination.
She smiled and thought, if only these people could see into her
heart and understand her, they would all be at her feet.
At a quarter past eleven she called her maid.
"Help me to dress, Dasha," she said languidly. "But go first and
tell them to get out the horses. I must set off for Klavdia
Nikolaevna's."
Going out to get into the carriage, she blinked at the glaring
daylight and laughed with pleasure: it was a wonderfully fine day!
As she scanned from her half-closed eyes the monks who had gathered
round the steps to see her off, she nodded graciously and said:
"Good-bye, my friends! Till the day after tomorrow."
It was an agreeable surprise to her that the doctor was with the
monks by the steps. His face was pale and severe.
"Princess," he said with a guilty smile, taking off his hat, "I've
been waiting here a long time to see you. Forgive me, for God's
sake. . . . I was carried away yesterday by an evil, vindictive
feeling and I talked . . . nonsense. In short, I beg your pardon."
The princess smiled graciously, and held out her hand for him to
kiss. He kissed it, turning red.
Trying to look like a bird, the princess fluttered into the carriage
and nodded in all directions. There was a gay, warm, serene feeling
in her heart, and she felt herself that her smile was particularly
soft and friendly. As the carriage rolled towards the gates, and
afterwards along the dusty road past huts and gardens, past long
trains of waggons and strings of pilgrims on their way to the
monastery, she still screwed up her eyes and smiled softly. She was
thinking there was no higher bliss than to bring warmth, light, and
joy wherever one went, to forgive injuries, to smile graciously on
one's enemies. The peasants she passed bowed to her, the carriage
rustled softly, clouds of dust rose from under the wheels and floated
over the golden rye, and it seemed to the princess that her body
was swaying not on carriage cushions but on clouds, and that she
herself was like a light, transparent little cloud. . . .
"How happy I am!" she murmured, shutting her eyes. "How happy I
am!"