IV
THE young man, with whom we have just acquainted our readers, was called Vladimir Nikolaich Panshin. He was serving in St Petersburg as an official in the special duties department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He had come to the town of O… on a temporary official assignment and was at the disposal of the Governor, General Sonnenberg, to whom he was distantly related. Panshin’s father, a retired cavalry captain and notorious gambler, a man with sugary eyes, wrinkled face and nervously twitching lips, had spent all his life among the aristocracy, frequenting the English Clubs of both capitals and having a reputation as a clever, not very reliable, but nice and jovial fellow. Despite his cleverness he was practically always on the very brink of penury and left his only son paltry and chaotic material means. On the other hand, after his own fashion he did take trouble over his son’s education: Vladimir Nikolaich could speak French beautifully, English well and German badly. Which is as it should be: decent people are ashamed of speaking German well, but the art of dropping a German word into one’s conversation at certain, usually humorous, moments – c’est même très chic, as our St Petersburg Parisians express it. From fifteen years of age Vladimir Nikolaich knew how to enter any drawing-room without embarrassment, engage in pleasant chit-chat and withdraw at the right moment. Panshin’s father had gained his son many connexions. Shuffling cards between rubbers or after a winning grand slam, he never let pass the opportunity of dropping in a word about his ‘little Volodya’ to one or another of those important people who liked to play cards for financial gain. For his own part, Vladimir Nikolaich during his university years (he graduated without distinction) became acquainted with several aristocratic young men and began to be received in the best houses. He was always treated as a welcome guest; he was not at all bad-looking, gay, entertaining, always in good health and ready for anything; respectful whenever necessary, scathing whenever possible, an excellent comrade, un charmant garçon. The promised land of high society spread out before him. Panshin soon learned the secret of such a life; he learned how to imbue himself with real respect for its rules, how to talk nonsense with quasi-facetious importance and give the impression of considering everything important to be nonsense, how to dance to perfection and dress in the English style. In a short time he passed as one of the most delightful and clever young men in St Petersburg. Panshin was indeed very clever, no less than his father; but he was also very gifted. Everything came to him easily: he could sing nicely, make lively sketches, write verse and act a part far from badly on the stage. He was only in his twenty-eighth year and already the holder of a post at court with an exceptionally high rank in the civil service. Panshin believed firmly in his own powers, in his intelligence and his perception; he went ahead boldly and joyously, at full speed, and his life was all plain sailing. He was used to being liked by everyone, old and young, and he imagined that he understood human nature, particularly women: he knew well enough their common weaknesses. As a man not entirely alien to things artistic, he sensed in himself a certain fire, a certain enthusiasm, even a high-flown zeal and as a consequence permitted himself to deviate in various ways from the rules by making merry and associating with those who did not belong to high society and generally by being free and easy. But basically he was cold and devious, and even during the wildest of debauches his clever brown eyes were ever watchful and on guard; this bold, this free-and-easy young man could never forget himself and abandon himself completely. In fairness to him it must be said that he never boasted of his conquests. He made his appearance in Marya Dmitrievna’s house immediately upon arrival in O… and was soon quite at home there. Marya Dmitrievna doted on him.
Panshin bowed graciously to everyone in the room, shook hands with Marya Dmitrievna and Lizaveta Mikhaylovna, tapped Gedeonovsky lightly on the shoulder and, turning on his heels, caught Lenochka by the head and kissed her on the temples.
‘Aren’t you afraid of riding such a frisky horse?’ Marya Dmitrievna asked him.
‘Oh, he’s actually quite quiet. But I’ll tell you what I am afraid of – I’m afraid of playing preference1 with Sergey Petrovich. Yesterday at the Belenitsyns’ he cleaned me out.’
Gedeonovsky broke into thin, sycophantic laughter: he sought to ingratiate himself with the brilliant young official from St Petersburg, the Governor’s favourite. In his conversations with Marya Dmitrievna he often referred to Panshin’s remarkable capabilities. Mark you, he would deliberate, how can one fail to sing his praises? The young man shone in the highest spheres of life and was also an exemplary civil servant, and there wasn’t a trace of arrogance in him. As a matter of fact, even in St Petersburg Panshin was regarded as a businesslike official: his hands were always busy, although he talked slightingly of his work as befitted a man of the world who ascribes little significance to his labours; yet he was an ‘executive type’. Heads of departments like that kind of subordinate; he himself never doubted that, if he wished, he would in time become a minister.
‘You are good enough to say that I cleaned you out,’ said Gedeonovsky, ‘but who was it last week that won twelve roubles off me? What’s more…’
‘Naughty, naughty,’ Panshin interrupted with agreeable but ever so slightly disdainful negligence and, turning away, approached Liza.
‘I haven’t been able to find the overture to Oberon2 here,’ he began. ‘Mrs Belenitsyn was only boasting when she said she had all the classics – in fact she has nothing except polkas and waltzes. But I’ve already written off to Moscow and in a week you’ll get the overture. By the way,’ he continued, ‘yesterday I wrote a new romance to my own words. Would you like me to sing it? I don’t know how it’s turned out. Mrs Belenitsyn found it very charming, but what she says means nothing at all. I’d like to know your opinion. Though I think it would perhaps be better later on.’
‘Why later on?’ interposed Marya Dmitrievna. ‘Why not now?’
‘Certainly,’ said Panshin, with a kind of bright and sugary smile which would appear on his face and vanish all in a flash, and nudged a chair forward with his knee, seated himself at the piano and then, having struck a few chords, began to sing the following romance with clear articulation of each word:
The moon sails high above in majesty
Amid the paling clouds;
But from on high it moves the billowy sea
With its enchanting powers.
My own heart’s sea does surely know
You are its moon,
So it is moved – in joy and woe –
By you alone.
My heart is full of love’s regret,
Of love’s dumb pain;
I pine…. But you are free of pain as yet,
Like that disdainful moon.3
The second verse was sung with particular expressiveness and force; the stormy accompaniment suggested the sound of billowing waves. After the words: ‘I pine…’ he gave a faint sigh, lowered his eyes and dropped his voice in a dying morendo. When he finished, Liza praised the motif, Marya Dmitrievna said: ‘Charming,’ and Gedeonovsky even exclaimed: ‘Entrancing! The words and the music – both equally entrancing!’ And Lenochka gazed at the singer with childish awe. In a word, everyone in the room very much enjoyed the young dilettante’s composition; but beyond the drawing-room door, in the hall, there stood a new arrival, an old man who, judging by the expression on his downcast face and the way he shrugged his shoulders, took no pleasure in hearing Panshin’s romance, despite all its charm. After a moment’s pause to flick the dust from his shoes with a thick handkerchief, this man suddenly screwed up his eyes, dolefully pursed his lips, bent his already bent back and slowly entered the drawing-room.
‘Ah, good day, Christopher Fyodorych!’ Panshin was the first to cry out and quickly jumped up from the chair. ‘I’d no idea you were here. Had I known you were, nothing on earth would have made me sing my romance. I know you’re not fond of light music’
‘I have not heart,’ said the new arrival in his poor Russian accent and,
bowing to everyone, stopped awkwardly in the middle of the room.
‘Have you come, Monsieur Lemm,’ asked Marya Dmitrievna, ‘to give Liza her music lesson?’
‘No, not Lisafet Mikhaylovna, but Elen Mikhaylovna.’
‘Ah! Well, that’s splendid. Lenochka, go upstairs with Mr Lemm.’
The old man was about to follow the little girl out of the room, but Panshin stopped him.
‘Don’t go away after the lesson, Christopher Fyodorych,’ he said. ‘Lizaveta Mikhaylovna and I will be playing Beethoven’s Sonata for four hands.’
The old man muttered something under his breath, but Panshin continued in his badly pronounced German:
‘Lizaveta Mikhaylovna showed me the religious cantata which you brought her – a beautiful piece! You mustn’t think that I don’t know how to appreciate serious music. On the contrary: it is sometimes boring, but beneficial as well.’ The old man crimsoned to the roots of his hair, threw an oblique glance at Liza and hurriedly left the room.
Marya Dmitrievna asked Panshin to repeat his romance, but he announced that he had no wish to offend the ears of the learned German and suggested to Liza that they should practise the Beethoven Sonata. Then Marya Dmitrievna sighed and suggested for her own part that Gedeonovsky should accompany her for a walk in the garden. ‘I wish’, she said, ‘to have a few more words with you about our poor Fedya and to seek your advice.’ Gedeonovsky grinned, bowed, picked up his hat with two fingers at the point where his gloves had been neatly laid on its brim and departed with Marya Dmitrievna. Panshin and Liza remained in the room; she drew out and opened the Sonata; both of them sat down silently at the piano. From above resounded the faint sounds of scales played over and over by Lenochka’s unskilled fingers.
V
CHRISTOPHER THEODORE GOTTLIEB LEMM was born in 1786 into a family of penurious musicians in the town of Chemnitz in the Kingdom of Saxony. His father played the French horn, his mother played the harp; by his fifth year he was himself practising three different instruments. At eight he was orphaned and at ten he began earning his daily bread by his playing. For a long time he led a vagrant life, playing everywhere – at inns, at fairs, at peasant weddings and at balls. Finally he found a place in an orchestra and, moving ever higher and higher, eventually became conductor. He was a rather poor performer, but he had a fundamental understanding of music. In his twenty-eighth year he emigrated to Russia. He had been booked by a grandiose member of the gentry who could not endure music but maintained an orchestra for show. Lemm spent seven years as his director of music and left without a penny to show for it: the gentleman in question went bankrupt, wanted to give him an I.O.U. but later refused to give him even that – in short, did not pay him a farthing. He was advised to go abroad; but he did not wish to return home from Russia a beggar, from that great Russia, the gold mine of all artists. He decided to remain and try his luck. The poor German tried his luck for twenty yean: he was employed by various gentlemen, lived both in Moscow and in provincial towns, endured and suffered much, experiencing poverty and struggling for life like a fish out of water. But the idea of returning to his homeland never left him amid all the misfortunes which beset him. That idea alone kept him going. Fate, however, did not think fit to gladden him with this first and last happiness: at fifty, sick and prematurely decrepit, he found himself in the town of O… and remained there forever, having finally abandoned all hope of leaving the Russia that was so hateful to him and relying somehow on his lessons to make a paltry living. Lemm’s appearance was no advantage to him. He was short in stature, round-shouldered, with protuberant bent shoulder-blades and shrunken stomach, large flat feet and pale-blue nails on the stiff, inflexible fingers of his sinewy red hands. He had a wrinkled face, sunken cheeks and compressed lips which were endlessly making a chewing motion that, combined with his usual taciturnity, produced an almost menacing effect. His grey hair hung in tufts over his low forehead. His tiny motionless eyes had a dull glow like recently extinguished coals. He had a ponderous gait, swinging his cumbersome body from side to side at each step. Some of his movements were reminiscent of the preenings of an owl in a cage when it feels it is being watched and yet itself can hardly see out of its large, yellow, fearful and sleepily blinking eyes. Longstanding, implacable grief had left its ineradicable mark upon the poor musician and contorted and disfigured his already unbecoming person; but for those who could see beyond first impressions there was something kindly, honourable and unusual to be discerned in this half-ruined man. A devotee of Bach and Handel, expert at his craft, gifted with a lively imagination and that boldness of thought which is uniquely characteristic of the Germans, Lemm in time – who knows? – might have taken his place among the great composers of his country if life had led him on a different course; but he was not born under an auspicious star. He had written a great deal in his time – and he had not succeeded in seeing a single one of his compositions published; he had no idea how to set about things in the right way, to whom to bow at the right moment or when was the best time to busy himself. Somehow or other, a long time ago, an admirer and friend of his, also a German and also poor, had printed at his own expense two of his sonatas – and yet these remained entirely unsold in the storerooms of music shops; they vanished without sound or trace, literally as if they had been thrown into a river overnight. Lemm finally said goodbye to his dreams; the years, what is more, had taken their toll: he had grown crusty and hard like his fingers. All by himself, save for an old cook-housekeeper he took from the poor-house (he had never married), he lived in O… in a little house not far from the Kalitins’, passing much of his time in taking strolls and reading the Bible, a collection of Protestant psalms and the works of Shakespeare in Schlegel’s translation. It was a long time since he had composed anything new; but clearly Liza, his best pupil, had stirred his creative powers and he had written for her the cantata to which Panshin referred. The words of the cantata had been taken from the collection of psalms, though he had added some verses of his own. It was to be sung by two choirs of the lucky and the luckless – and in the finale they were to be reconciled and sing together: ‘Merciful Lord, forgive us, Thy sinners, and save us from all wicked thoughts and worldly hopes.’ On the title page, in extremely neat lettering and even suitably embellished, was the following: ‘Only the Righteous shall be Justified. A Religious Cantata. Composed and dedicated to my dear pupil, Miss Elizaveta Kalitin, by her teacher, C.T.G. Lemm.’ The words: ‘Only the Righteous shall be Justified’ and ‘Miss Elizaveta Kalitin’ were surrounded by decorative rays. Below had been written: ‘For you alone, für Sie allein.’ This was why Lemm had reddened and looked obliquely at Liza; Panshin’s mention of his cantata in his presence was very painful to him.
VI
PANSHIN struck the first chords of the Sonata loudly and resolutely (he was playing the bass part), but Liza did not begin her part. He stopped and looked at her. Liza’s eyes, directed straight at him, expressed displeasure; there was no smile on her lips and her face was stern, almost sad.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.
‘Why didn’t you keep your word?’ she asked. ‘I showed you Christopher Fyodorych’s cantata on the condition that you did not speak to him about it.’
‘I’m sorry, Lizaveta Mikhaylovna, the words just popped out.’
‘You’ve upset him – and me, too. Now he won’t trust even me any more.’
‘What can I do about it, Lizaveta Mikhaylovna? Ever since I was so high I haven’t been able to look at a German without wanting to tease him.’
‘How can you say that, Vladimir Nikolaich! This German is a poor, lonely, crushed man – can’t you feel sorry for him? Why do you want to tease him?’
Panshin became confused.
‘You’re right, Lizaveta Mikhaylovna,’ he said. ‘What’s to blame is my eternal lack of forethought. No, don’t contradict me – I know myself only too well. My lack of forethought has done me great harm. Through it I’ve gained a reputation for b
eing an egoist.’
Panshin paused. No matter how he began a conversation, he usually ended by talking about himself, and it somehow came out so nicely and unaffectedly, so warmly, as though it were quite against his will.
‘Here in your house as well,’ he continued, ‘your mother is, of course, so gracious to me – she is such a kind person. And you… but I’m afraid I don’t know your opinion of me, whereas I know your aunt can’t stand me. I must’ve offended her as well by something thoughtless and foolish I’ve said. It’s true she doesn’t like me, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Liza a little unncertainly, ‘she’s not fond of you.’
Panshin quickly ran his fingers along the keys and a faintly perceptible grin flickered on his lips.
‘Well, what about you?’ he asked. ‘Do I also seem to be an egoist to you?’
‘I still know so little about you,’ Liza replied, ‘but I don’t consider you an egoist. On the contrary, I must be grateful to you…’
‘I know, I know what you mean,’ Panshin broke in and again ran his fingers along the keys. ‘You’re grateful for the music and books I bring you, for the poor drawings with which I decorate your album, and so on, and so forth. I can do all that and still be an egoist. I dare to think you’re not bored in my company and you don’t consider me bad, but you still imagine I’d – how’s that saying go? – I’d spare neither father nor friend for a pretty phrase.’
‘You’re absent-minded and forgetful, like all socialites,’ said Liza. ‘That’s all.’
Panshin frowned slightly.
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘let’s not talk about me any more. Let’s start playing our sonata. I ask you to do only one thing,’ he added, smoothing out the sheets of the music book on the stand, ‘think what you like about me, even call me an egoist – so be it! but don’t call me a socialite: I can’t stand that title … Anch’io sono pittore, I’m also an artist, if a poor one, and that’s precisely what I’m going to prove to you now in fact. Let’s begin.’