I
ANDREY VASSILITCH KOVRIN, who held a master's degree at the University,
had exhausted himself, and had upset his nerves. He did not send for a
doctor, but casually, over a bottle of wine, he spoke to a friend who
was a doctor, and the latter advised him to spend the spring and summer
in the country. Very opportunely a long letter came from Tanya Pesotsky,
who asked him to come and stay with them at Borissovka. And he made up
his mind that he really must go.
To begin with--that was in April--he went to his own home, Kovrinka, and
there spent three weeks in solitude; then, as soon as the roads were in
good condition, he set off, driving in a carriage, to visit Pesotsky,
his former guardian, who had brought him up, and was a horticulturist
well known all over Russia. The distance from Kovrinka to Borissovka was
reckoned only a little over fifty miles. To drive along a soft road in
May in a comfortable carriage with springs was a real pleasure.
Pesotsky had an immense house with columns and lions, off which the
stucco was peeling, and with a footman in swallow-tails at the entrance.
The old park, laid out in the English style, gloomy and severe,
stretched for almost three-quarters of a mile to the river, and there
ended in a steep, precipitous clay bank, where pines grew with bare
roots that looked like shaggy paws; the water shone below with an
unfriendly gleam, and the peewits flew up with a plaintive cry, and
there one always felt that one must sit down and write a ballad. But
near the house itself, in the courtyard and orchard, which together with
the nurseries covered ninety acres, it was all life and gaiety even in
bad weather. Such marvellous roses, lilies, camellias; such tulips of
all possible shades, from glistening white to sooty black--such a wealth
of flowers, in fact, Kovrin had never seen anywhere as at Pesotsky's. It
was only the beginning of spring, and the real glory of the flower-beds
was still hidden away in the hot-houses. But even the flowers along the
avenues, and here and there in the flower-beds, were enough to make one
feel, as one walked about the garden, as though one were in a realm of
tender colours, especially in the early morning when the dew was
glistening on every petal.
What was the decorative part of the garden, and what Pesotsky
contemptuously spoke of as rubbish, had at one time in his childhood
given Kovrin an impression of fairyland.
Every sort of caprice, of elaborate monstrosity and mockery at Nature
was here. There were espaliers of fruit-trees, a pear-tree in the shape
of a pyramidal poplar, spherical oaks and lime-trees, an apple-tree in
the shape of an umbrella, plum-trees trained into arches, crests,
candelabra, and even into the number 1862--the year when Pesotsky first
took up horticulture. One came across, too, lovely, graceful trees with
strong, straight stems like palms, and it was only by looking intently
that one could recognise these trees as gooseberries or currants. But
what made the garden most cheerful and gave it a lively air, was the
continual coming and going in it, from early morning till evening;
people with wheelbarrows, shovels, and watering-cans swarmed round the
trees and bushes, in the avenues and the flower-beds, like ants....
Kovrin arrived at Pesotsky's at ten o'clock in the evening. He found
Tanya and her father, Yegor Semyonitch, in great anxiety. The clear
starlight sky and the thermometer foretold a frost towards morning, and
meanwhile Ivan Karlovitch, the gardener, had gone to the town, and they
had no one to rely upon. At supper they talked of nothing but the
morning frost, and it was settled that Tanya should not go to bed, and
between twelve and one should walk through the garden, and see that
everything was done properly, and Yegor Semyonitch should get up at
three o'clock or even earlier.
Kovrin sat with Tanya all the evening, and after midnight went out with
her into the garden. It was cold. There was a strong smell of burning
already in the garden. In the big orchard, which was called the
commercial garden, and which brought Yegor Semyonitch several thousand
clear profit, a thick, black, acrid smoke was creeping over the ground
and, curling around the trees, was saving those thousands from the
frost. Here the trees were arranged as on a chessboard, in straight and
regular rows like ranks of soldiers, and this severe pedantic
regularity, and the fact that all the trees were of the same size, and
had tops and trunks all exactly alike, made them look monotonous and
even dreary. Kovrin and Tanya walked along the rows where fires of dung,
straw, and all sorts of refuse were smouldering, and from time to time
they were met by labourers who wandered in the smoke like shadows. The
only trees in flower were the cherries, plums, and certain sorts of
apples, but the whole garden was plunged in smoke, and it was only near
the nurseries that Kovrin could breathe freely.
"Even as a child I used to sneeze from the smoke here," he said,
shrugging his shoulders, "but to this day I don't understand how smoke
can keep off frost."
"Smoke takes the place of clouds when there are none ..." answered
Tanya.
"And what do you want clouds for?"
"In overcast and cloudy weather there is no frost."
"You don't say so."
He laughed and took her arm. Her broad, very earnest face, chilled with
the frost, with her delicate black eyebrows, the turned-up collar of her
coat, which prevented her moving her head freely, and the whole of her
thin, graceful figure, with her skirts tucked up on account of the dew,
touched him.
"Good heavens! she is grown up," he said. "When I went away from here
last, five years ago, you were still a child. You were such a thin,
longlegged creature, with your hair hanging on your shoulders; you used
to wear short frocks, and I used to tease you, calling you a heron....
What time does!"
"Yes, five years!" sighed Tanya. "Much water has flowed since then. Tell
me, Andryusha, honestly," she began eagerly, looking him in the face:
"do you feel strange with us now? But why do I ask you? You are a man,
you live your own interesting life, you are somebody.... To grow apart
is so natural! But however that may be, Andryusha, I want you to think
of us as your people. We have a right to that."
"I do, Tanya."
"On your word of honour?"
"Yes, on my word of honour."
"You were surprised this evening that we have so many of your
photographs. You know my father adores you. Sometimes it seems to me
that he loves you more than he does me. He is proud of you. You are a
clever, extraordinary man, you have made a brilliant career for
yourself, and he is persuaded that you have turned out like this because
he brought you up. I don't try to prevent him from thinking so. Let
him."
Dawn was already beginning, and that was especially perceptible from the
distinctness with which the coils of smoke and the tops of the trees
began to stand out in the air.
"It's time we were asleep, though," said Tanya, "and it's cold, too."
She took his arm. "Thank you for coming, Andryusha. We have only
uninteresting acquaintances, and not many of them. We have only the
garden, the garden, the garden, and nothing else. Standards,
half-standards," she laughed. "Aports, Reinettes, Borovinkas, budded
stocks, grafted stocks.... All, all our life has gone into the garden. I
never even dream of anything but apples and pears. Of course, it is very
nice and useful, but sometimes one longs for something else for variety.
I remember that when you used to come to us for the summer holidays, or
simply a visit, it always seemed to be fresher and brighter in the
house, as though the covers had been taken off the lustres and the
furniture. I was only a little girl then, but yet I understood it."
She talked a long while and with great feeling. For some reason the idea
came into his head that in the course of the summer he might grow fond
of this little, weak, talkative creature, might be carried away and fall
in love; in their position it was so possible and natural! This thought
touched and amused him; he bent down to her sweet, preoccupied face and
hummed softly:
"'Onyegin, I won't conceal it;
I madly love Tatiana....'"
By the time they reached the house, Yegor Semyonitch had got up. Kovrin
did not feel sleepy; he talked to the old man and went to the garden
with him. Yegor Semyonitch was a tall, broad-shouldered, corpulent man,
and he suffered from asthma, yet he walked so fast that it was hard work
to hurry after him. He had an extremely preoccupied air; he was always
hurrying somewhere, with an expression that suggested that if he were
one minute late all would be ruined!
"Here is a business, brother ..." he began, standing still to take
breath. "On the surface of the ground, as you see, is frost; but if you
raise the thermometer on a stick fourteen feet above the ground, there
it is warm.... Why is that?"
"I really don't know," said Kovrin, and he laughed.
"H'm!... One can't know everything, of course.... However large the
intellect may be, you can't find room for everything in it. I suppose
you still go in chiefly for philosophy?"
"Yes, I lecture in psychology; I am working at philosophy in general."
"And it does not bore you?"
"On the contrary, it's all I live for."
"Well, God bless you!..." said Yegor Semyonitch, meditatively stroking
his grey whiskers. "God bless you!... I am delighted about you ...
delighted, my boy...."
But suddenly he listened, and, with a terrible face, ran off and quickly
disappeared behind the trees in a cloud of smoke.
"Who tied this horse to an apple-tree?" Kovrin heard his despairing,
heart-rending cry. "Who is the low scoundrel who has dared to tie this
horse to an apple-tree? My God, my God! They have ruined everything;
they have spoilt everything; they have done everything filthy, horrible,
and abominable. The orchard's done for, the orchard's ruined. My God!"
When he came back to Kovrin, his face looked exhausted and mortified.
"What is one to do with these accursed people?" he said in a tearful
voice, flinging up his hands. "Styopka was carting dung at night, and
tied the horse to an apple-tree! He twisted the reins round it, the
rascal, as tightly as he could, so that the bark is rubbed off in three
places. What do you think of that! I spoke to him and he stands like a
post and only blinks his eyes. Hanging is too good for him."
Growing calmer, he embraced Kovrin and kissed him on the cheek.
"Well, God bless you!... God bless you!..." he muttered. "I am very glad
you have come. Unutterably glad.... Thank you."
Then, with the same rapid step and preoccupied face, he made the round
of the whole garden, and showed his former ward all his greenhouses and
hot-houses, his covered-in garden, and two apiaries which he called the
marvel of our century.
While they were walking the sun rose, flooding the garden with brilliant
light. It grew warm. Foreseeing a long, bright, cheerful day, Kovrin
recollected that it was only the beginning of May, and that he had
before him a whole summer as bright, cheerful, and long; and suddenly
there stirred in his bosom a joyous, youthful feeling, such as he used
to experience in his childhood, running about in that garden. And he
hugged the old man and kissed him affectionately. Both of them, feeling
touched, went indoors and drank tea out of old-fashioned china cups,
with cream and satisfying krendels made with milk and eggs; and these
trifles reminded Kovrin again of his childhood and boyhood. The
delightful present was blended with the impressions of the past that
stirred within him; there was a tightness at his heart; yet he was
happy.
He waited till Tanya was awake and had coffee with her, went for a walk,
then went to his room and sat down to work. He read attentively, making
notes, and from time to time raised his eyes to look out at the open
windows or at the fresh, still dewy flowers in the vases on the table;
and again he dropped his eyes to his book, and it seemed to him as
though every vein in his body was quivering and fluttering with
pleasure.