In Holy Week the Laptevs went to an exhibition of pictures in the
school of painting. The whole family went together in the Moscow
fashion, the little girls, the governess, Kostya, and all.
Laptev knew the names of all the well-known painters, and never
missed an exhibition. He used sometimes to paint little landscape
paintings when he was in the country in the summer, and he fancied
he had a good deal of taste, and that if he had studied he might
have made a good painter. When he was abroad he sometimes used to
go to curio shops, examining the antiques with the air of a connoisseur
and giving his opinion on them. When he bought any article he gave
just what the shopkeeper liked to ask for it and his purchase
remained afterwards in a box in the coach-house till it disappeared
altogether. Or going into a print shop, he would slowly and attentively
examine the engravings and the bronzes, making various remarks on
them, and would buy a common frame or a box of wretched prints. At
home he had pictures always of large dimensions but of inferior
quality; the best among them were badly hung. It had happened to
him more than once to pay large sums for things which had afterwards
turned out to be forgeries of the grossest kind. And it was remarkable
that, though as a rule timid in the affairs of life, he was exceedingly
bold and self-confident at a picture exhibition. Why?
Yulia Sergeyevna looked at the pictures as her husband did, through
her open fist or an opera-glass, and was surprised that the people
in the pictures were like live people, and the trees like real
trees. But she did not understand art, and it seemed to her that
many pictures in the exhibition were alike, and she imagined that
the whole object in painting was that the figures and objects should
stand out as though they were real, when you looked at the picture
through your open fist.
"That forest is Shiskin's," her husband explained to her. "He always
paints the same thing. . . . But notice snow's never such a lilac
colour as that. . . . And that boy's left arm is shorter than his
right."
When they were all tired and Laptev had gone to look for Kostya,
that they might go home, Yulia stopped indifferently before a small
landscape. In the foreground was a stream, over it a little wooden
bridge; on the further side a path that disappeared in the dark
grass; a field on the right; a copse; near it a camp fire--no
doubt of watchers by night; and in the distance there was a glow
of the evening sunset.
Yulia imagined walking herself along the little bridge, and then
along the little path further and further, while all round was
stillness, the drowsy landrails calling and the fire flickering in
the distance. And for some reason she suddenly began to feel that
she had seen those very clouds that stretched across the red part
of the sky, and that copse, and that field before, many times before.
She felt lonely, and longed to walk on and on along the path; and
there, in the glow of sunset was the calm reflection of something
unearthly, eternal.
"How finely that's painted!" she said, surprised that the picture
had suddenly become intelligible to her.
"Look, Alyosha! Do you see how peaceful it is?"
She began trying to explain why she liked the landscape so much,
but neither Kostya nor her husband understood her. She kept looking
at the picture with a mournful smile, and the fact that the others
saw nothing special in it troubled her. Then she began walking
through the rooms and looking at the pictures again. She tried to
understand them and no longer thought that a great many of them
were alike. When, on returning home, for the first time she looked
attentively at the big picture that hung over the piano in the
drawing-room, she felt a dislike for it, and said:
"What an idea to have pictures like that!"
And after that the gilt cornices, the Venetian looking-glasses with
flowers on them, the pictures of the same sort as the one that hung
over the piano, and also her husband's and Kostya's reflections
upon art, aroused in her a feeling of dreariness and vexation, even
of hatred.
Life went on its ordinary course from day to day with no promise
of anything special. The theatrical season was over, the warm days
had come. There was a long spell of glorious weather. One morning
the Laptevs attended the district court to hear Kostya, who had
been appointed by the court to defend some one. They were late in
starting, and reached the court after the examination of the witnesses
had begun. A soldier in the reserve was accused of theft and
housebreaking. There were a great number of witnesses, washerwomen;
they all testified that the accused was often in the house of their
employer--a woman who kept a laundry. At the Feast of the Exaltation
of the Cross he came late in the evening and began asking for money;
he wanted a pick-me-up, as he had been drinking, but no one gave
him anything. Then he went away, but an hour afterwards he came
back, and brought with him some beer and a soft gingerbread cake
for the little girl. They drank and sang songs almost till daybreak,
and when in the morning they looked about, the lock of the door
leading up into the attic was broken, and of the linen three men's
shirts, a petticoat, and two sheets were missing. Kostya asked each
witness sarcastically whether she had not drunk the beer the accused
had brought. Evidently he was insinuating that the washerwomen had
stolen the linen themselves. He delivered his speech without the
slightest nervousness, looking angrily at the jury.
He explained what robbery with housebreaking meant, and the difference
between that and simple theft. He spoke very circumstantially and
convincingly, displaying an unusual talent for speaking at length
and in a serious tone about what had been know to every one long
before. And it was difficult to make out exactly what he was aiming
at. From his long speech the foreman of the jury could only have
deduced "that it was housebreaking but not robbery, as the washerwomen
had sold the linen for drink themselves; or, if there had been
robbery, there had not been housebreaking." But obviously, he said
just what was wanted, as his speech moved the jury and the audience,
and was very much liked. When they gave a verdict of acquittal,
Yulia nodded to Kostya, and afterwards pressed his hand warmly.
In May the Laptevs moved to a country villa at Sokolniki. By that
time Yulia was expecting a baby.