An old man of sixty, in a long fur coat reaching to the ground, and a
beaver cap, was standing at the door.
"Is Georgy Ivanitch at home?" he asked.
At first I thought it was one of the moneylenders, Gruzin's creditors,
who sometimes used to come to Orlov for small payments on account; but
when he came into the hall and flung open his coat, I saw the thick
brows and the characteristically compressed lips which I knew so well
from the photographs, and two rows of stars on the uniform. I recognised
him: it was Orlov's father, the distinguished statesman.
I answered that Georgy Ivanitch was not at home. The old man pursed up
his lips tightly and looked into space, reflecting, showing me his
dried-up, toothless profile.
"I'll leave a note," he said; "show me in."
He left his goloshes in the hall, and, without taking off his long,
heavy fur coat, went into the study. There he sat down before the table,
and, before taking up the pen, for three minutes he pondered, shading
his eyes with his hand as though from the sun--exactly as his son did
when he was out of humour. His face was sad, thoughtful, with that look
of resignation which I have only seen on the faces of the old and
religious. I stood behind him, gazed at his bald head and at the hollow
at the nape of his neck, and it was clear as daylight to me that this
weak old man was now in my power. There was not a soul in the flat
except my enemy and me. I had only to use a little physical violence,
then snatch his watch to disguise the object of the crime, and to get
off by the back way, and I should have gained infinitely more than I
could have imagined possible when I took up the part of a footman. I
thought that I could hardly get a better opportunity. But instead of
acting, I looked quite unconcernedly, first at his bald patch and then
at his fur, and calmly meditated on this man's relation to his only son,
and on the fact that people spoiled by power and wealth probably don't
want to die....
"Have you been long in my son's service?" he asked, writing a large hand
on the paper.
"Three months, your High Excellency."
He finished the letter and stood up. I still had time. I urged myself on
and clenched my fists, trying to wring out of my soul some trace of my
former hatred; I recalled what a passionate, implacable, obstinate hate
I had felt for him only a little while before.... But it is difficult to
strike a match against a crumbling stone. The sad old face and the cold
glitter of his stars roused in me nothing but petty, cheap, unnecessary
thoughts of the transitoriness of everything earthly, of the nearness of
death....
"Good-day, brother," said the old man. He put on his cap and went out.
There could be no doubt about it: I had undergone a change; I had become
different. To convince myself, I began to recall the past, but at once I
felt uneasy, as though I had accidentally peeped into a dark, damp
corner. I remembered my comrades and friends, and my first thought was
how I should blush in confusion if ever I met any of them. What was I
now? What had I to think of and to do? Where was I to go? What was I
living for?
I could make nothing of it. I only knew one thing--that I must make
haste to pack my things and be off. Before the old man's visit my
position as a flunkey had a meaning; now it was absurd. Tears dropped
into my open portmanteau; I felt insufferably sad; but how I longed to
live! I was ready to embrace and include in my short life every
possibility open to man. I wanted to speak, to read, and to hammer in
some big factory, and to stand on watch, and to plough. I yearned for
the Nevsky Prospect, for the sea and the fields--for every place to
which my imagination travelled. When Zinaida Fyodorovna came in, I
rushed to open the door for her, and with peculiar tenderness took off
her fur coat. The last time!
We had two other visitors that day besides the old man. In the evening
when it was quite dark, Gruzin came to fetch some papers for Orlov. He
opened the table-drawer, took the necessary papers, and, rolling them
up, told me to put them in the hall beside his cap while he went in to
see Zinaida Fyodorovna. She was lying on the sofa in the drawing-room,
with her arms behind her head. Five or six days had already passed since
Orlov went on his tour of inspection, and no one knew when he would be
back, but this time she did not send telegrams and did not expect them.
She did not seem to notice the presence of Polya, who was still living
with us. "So be it, then," was what I read on her passionless and very
pale face. Like Orlov, she wanted to be unhappy out of obstinacy. To
spite herself and everything in the world, she lay for days together on
the sofa, desiring and expecting nothing but evil for herself. Probably
she was picturing to herself Orlov's return and the inevitable quarrels
with him; then his growing indifference to her, his infidelities; then
how they would separate; and perhaps these agonising thoughts gave her
satisfaction. But what would she have said if she found out the actual
truth?
"I love you, Godmother," said Gruzin, greeting her and kissing her hand.
"You are so kind! And so dear _George_ has gone away," he lied. "He has
gone away, the rascal!"
He sat down with a sigh and tenderly stroked her hand.
"Let me spend an hour with you, my dear," he said. "I don't want to go
home, and it's too early to go to the Birshovs'. The Birshovs are
keeping their Katya's birthday to-day. She is a nice child!"
I brought him a glass of tea and a decanter of brandy. He slowly and
with obvious reluctance drank the tea, and returning the glass to me,
asked timidly:
"Can you give me ... something to eat, my friend? I have had no dinner."
We had nothing in the flat. I went to the restaurant and brought him the
ordinary rouble dinner.
"To your health, my dear," he said to Zinaida Fyodorovna, and he tossed
off a glass of vodka. "My little girl, your godchild, sends you her
love. Poor child! she's rickety. Ah, children, children!" he sighed.
"Whatever you may say, Godmother, it is nice to be a father. Dear
_George_ can't understand that feeling."
He drank some more. Pale and lean, with his dinner-napkin over his chest
like a little pinafore, he ate greedily, and raising his eyebrows, kept
looking guiltily, like a little boy, first at Zinaida Fyodorovna and
then at me. It seemed as though he would have begun crying if I had not
given him the grouse or the jelly. When he had satisfied his hunger he
grew more lively, and began laughingly telling some story about the
Birshov household, but perceiving that it was tiresome and that Zinaida
Fyodorovna was not laughing, he ceased. And there was a sudden feeling
of dreariness. After he had finished his dinner they sat in the
drawing-room by the light of a single lamp, and did not speak; it was
painful to him to lie to her, and she wanted to ask him something, but
could not make up her mind to. So passed half an hour. Gruzin glanced at
his watch.
"I suppose it's time for me to go."
"No, stay a little.... We must have a talk."
Again they were silent. He sat down to the piano, struck one chord, then
began playing, and sang softly, "What does the coming day bring me?" but
as usual he got up suddenly and tossed his head.
"Play something," Zinaida Fyodorovna asked him.
"What shall I play?" he asked, shrugging his shoulders. "I have
forgotten everything. I've given it up long ago."
Looking at the ceiling as though trying to remember, he played two
pieces of Tchaikovsky with exquisite expression, with such warmth, such
insight! His face was just as usual--neither stupid nor intelligent--and
it seemed to me a perfect marvel that a man whom I was accustomed to see
in the midst of the most degrading, impure surroundings, was capable of
such purity, of rising to a feeling so lofty, so far beyond my reach.
Zinaida Fyodorovna's face glowed, and she walked about the drawing-room
in emotion.
"Wait a bit, Godmother; if I can remember it, I will play you
something," he said; "I heard it played on the violoncello."
Beginning timidly and picking out the notes, and then gathering
confidence, he played Saint-Saëns's "Swan Song." He played it through,
and then played it a second time.
"It's nice, isn't it?" he said.
Moved by the music, Zinaida Fyodorovna stood beside him and asked:
"Tell me honestly, as a friend, what do you think about me?"
"What am I to say?" he said, raising his eyebrows. "I love you and think
nothing but good of you. But if you wish that I should speak generally
about the question that interests you," he went on, rubbing his sleeve
near the elbow and frowning, "then, my dear, you know.... To follow
freely the promptings of the heart does not always give good people
happiness. To feel free and at the same time to be happy, it seems to
me, one must not conceal from oneself that life is coarse, cruel, and
merciless in its conservatism, and one must retaliate with what it
deserves--that is, be as coarse and as merciless in one's striving for
freedom. That's what I think."
"That's beyond me," said Zinaida Fyodorovna, with a mournful smile. "I
am exhausted already. I am so exhausted that I wouldn't stir a finger
for my own salvation."
"Go into a nunnery."
He said this in jest, but after he had said it, tears glistened in
Zinaida Fyodorovna's eyes and then in his.
"Well," he said, "we've been sitting and sitting, and now we must go.
Good-bye, dear Godmother. God give you health."
He kissed both her hands, and stroking them tenderly, said that he
should certainly come to see her again in a day or two. In the hall, as
he was putting on his overcoat, that was so like a child's pelisse, he
fumbled long in his pockets to find a tip for me, but found nothing
there.
"Good-bye, my dear fellow," he said sadly, and went away.