After supper, when the visitors had gone, he went to his room and lay
down on the sofa: he wanted to think about the monk. But a minute later
Tanya came in.
"Here, Andryusha; read father's articles," she said, giving him a bundle
of pamphlets and proofs. "They are splendid articles. He writes
capitally."
"Capitally, indeed!" said Yegor Semyonitch, following her and smiling
constrainedly; he was ashamed. "Don't listen to her, please; don't read
them! Though, if you want to go to sleep, read them by all means; they
are a fine soporific."
"I think they are splendid articles," said Tanya, with deep conviction.
"You read them, Andryusha, and persuade father to write oftener. He
could write a complete manual of horticulture."
Yegor Semyonitch gave a forced laugh, blushed, and began uttering the
phrases usually made use of by an embarrassed author. At last he began
to give way.
"In that case, begin with Gaucher's article and these Russian articles,"
he muttered, turning over the pamphlets with a trembling hand, "or else
you won't understand. Before you read my objections, you must know what
I am objecting to. But it's all nonsense ... tiresome stuff. Besides, I
believe it's bedtime."
Tanya went away. Yegor Semyonitch sat down on the sofa by Kovrin and
heaved a deep sigh.
"Yes, my boy ..." he began after a pause. "That's how it is, my dear
lecturer. Here I write articles, and take part in exhibitions, and
receive medals.... Pesotsky, they say, has apples the size of a head,
and Pesotsky, they say, has made his fortune with his garden. In short,
'Kotcheby is rich and glorious.' But one asks oneself: what is it all
for? The garden is certainly fine, a model. It's not really a garden,
but a regular institution, which is of the greatest public importance
because it marks, so to say, a new era in Russian agriculture and
Russian industry. But, what's it for? What's the object of it?"
"The fact speaks for itself."
"I do not mean in that sense. I meant to ask: what will happen to the
garden when I die? In the condition in which you see it now, it would
not be maintained for one month without me. The whole secret of success
lies not in its being a big garden or a great number of labourers being
employed in it, but in the fact that I love the work. Do you understand?
I love it perhaps more than myself. Look at me; I do everything myself.
I work from morning to night: I do all the grafting myself, the pruning
myself, the planting myself. I do it all myself: when any one helps me I
am jealous and irritable till I am rude. The whole secret lies in loving
it--that is, in the sharp eye of the master; yes, and in the master's
hands, and in the feeling that makes one, when one goes anywhere for an
hour's visit, sit, ill at ease, with one's heart far away, afraid that
something may have happened in the garden. But when I die, who will look
after it? Who will work? The gardener? The labourers? Yes? But I will
tell you, my dear fellow, the worst enemy in the garden is not a hare,
not a cockchafer, and not the frost, but any outside person."
"And Tanya?" asked Kovrin, laughing. "She can't be more harmful than a
hare? She loves the work and understands it."
"Yes, she loves it and understands it. If after my death the garden goes
to her and she is the mistress, of course nothing better could be
wished. But if, which God forbid, she should marry," Yegor Semyonitch
whispered, and looked with a frightened look at Kovrin, "that's just it.
If she marries and children come, she will have no time to think about
the garden. What I fear most is: she will marry some fine gentleman, and
he will be greedy, and he will let the garden to people who will run it
for profit, and everything will go to the devil the very first year! In
our work females are the scourge of God!"
Yegor Semyonitch sighed and paused for a while.
"Perhaps it is egoism, but I tell you frankly: I don't want Tanya to get
married. I am afraid of it! There is one young dandy comes to see us,
bringing his violin and scraping on it; I know Tanya will not marry him,
I know it quite well; but I can't bear to see him! Altogether, my boy, I
am very queer. I know that."
Yegor Semyonitch got up and walked about the room in excitement, and it
was evident that he wanted to say something very important, but could
not bring himself to it.
"I am very fond of you, and so I am going to speak to you openly," he
decided at last, thrusting his hands into his pockets. "I deal plainly
with certain delicate questions, and say exactly what I think, and I
cannot endure so-called hidden thoughts. I will speak plainly: you are
the only man to whom I should not be afraid to marry my daughter. You
are a clever man with a good heart, and would not let my beloved work go
to ruin; and the chief reason is that I love you as a son, and I am
proud of you. If Tanya and you could get up a romance somehow,
then--well! I should be very glad and even happy. I tell you this
plainly, without mincing matters, like an honest man."
Kovrin laughed. Yegor Semyonitch opened the door to go out, and stood in
the doorway.
"If Tanya and you had a son, I would make a horticulturist of him," he
said, after a moment's thought. "However, this is idle dreaming.
Goodnight."
Left alone, Kovrin settled himself more comfortably on the sofa and took
up the articles. The title of one was "On Intercropping"; of another, "A
few Words on the Remarks of Monsieur Z. concerning the Trenching of the
Soil for a New Garden"; a third, "Additional Matter concerning Grafting
with a Dormant Bud"; and they were all of the same sort. But what a
restless, jerky tone! What nervous, almost hysterical passion! Here was
an article, one would have thought, with most peaceable and impersonal
contents: the subject of it was the Russian Antonovsky Apple. But Yegor
Semyonitch began it with "Audiatur altera pars," and finished it with
"Sapienti sat"; and between these two quotations a perfect torrent of
venomous phrases directed "at the learned ignorance of our recognised
horticultural authorities, who observe Nature from the height of their
university chairs," or at Monsieur Gaucher, "whose success has been the
work of the vulgar and the dilettanti." And then followed an
inappropriate, affected, and insincere regret that peasants who stole
fruit and broke the branches could not nowadays be flogged.
"It is beautiful, charming, healthy work, but even in this there is
strife and passion," thought Kovrin, "I suppose that everywhere and in
all careers men of ideas are nervous, and marked by exaggerated
sensitiveness. Most likely it must be so."
He thought of Tanya, who was so pleased with Yegor Semyonitch's
articles. Small, pale, and so thin that her shoulder-blades stuck out,
her eyes, wide and open, dark and intelligent, had an intent gaze, as
though looking for something. She walked like her father with a little
hurried step. She talked a great deal and was fond of arguing,
accompanying every phrase, however insignificant, with expressive
mimicry and gesticulation. No doubt she was nervous in the extreme.
Kovrin went on reading the articles, but he understood nothing of them,
and flung them aside. The same pleasant excitement with which he had
earlier in the evening danced the mazurka and listened to the music was
now mastering him again and rousing a multitude of thoughts. He got up
and began walking about the room, thinking about the black monk. It
occurred to him that if this strange, supernatural monk had appeared to
him only, that meant that he was ill and had reached the point of having
hallucinations. This reflection frightened him, but not for long.
"But I am all right, and I am doing no harm to any one; so there is no
harm in my hallucinations," he thought; and he felt happy again.
He sat down on the sofa and clasped his hands round his head.
Restraining the unaccountable joy which filled his whole being, he then
paced up and down again, and sat down to his work. But the thought that
he read in the book did not satisfy him. He wanted something gigantic,
unfathomable, stupendous. Towards morning he undressed and reluctantly
went to bed: he ought to sleep.
When he heard the footsteps of Yegor Semyonitch going out into the
garden, Kovrin rang the bell and asked the footman to bring him some
wine. He drank several glasses of Lafitte, then wrapped himself up, head
and all; his consciousness grew clouded and he fell asleep.