CHAPTER XI
Raisky's patience had to suffer a hard trial in Vera's indifference. Hiscourage failed him, and he fell into a dull, fruitless boredom. In thisidle mood he drew village scenes in his sketch album--he had alreadysketched nearly every aspect of the Volga to be seen from the house orthe cliff--and he made notes in his note books. He hoped by theseoccupations to free himself from his obsessing thoughts of Vera. He knewhe would do better to begin a big piece of work, instead of thesetrifles. But he told himself that Russians did not understand hard work,or that real work demanded rude strength, the use of the hands, theshoulders and the back. He thought that in work of this kind a man lostconsciousness of his humanity, and experienced no pleasures in hisexertions; he shouldered his burden like a horse that seeks to ward offthe whip with his tail. Rough manual labour left no place for boredom.Yet no one seeks distractions in work, but in pleasure. Work, notappearances, he repeated, oppressed by the overpowering dulness whichdrove him nearly mad, and created a frame of mind quite contrary to hisgentle temperament. I have no work, I cannot create as do artists whoare absorbed in their work, and are ready to die for it.
He took his cap and strolled into the outlying parts of the town, theninto the town, where he observed every passer-by, stared into the houses,down the streets, and at last found himself standing before the Koslov'shouse. Being told that Koslov was at the school, he inquired for JulianaAndreevna. The woman who had opened the door to him, looked at himaskance, blew her nose with her apron, wiped it with her finger, andvanished into the house for good. He knocked again, the dogs barked, andthen appeared a little girl, holding her finger to her mouth, who staredat him and departed. He was about to knock again, but, instead, turnedto go. As he passed through the little garden he heard voices, ParisianFrench, and a woman's voice; he heard laughter and even a kiss.
"Poor Leonti!" he whispered. "Or rather, blind Leonti!"
He stood uncertain whether to go or stay, then hastened his steps, anddetermined to have speech with Mark. He sought distraction of some kindto rid himself of his mood of depression, and to drive away theinsistent thoughts of Vera. Passing the warped houses, he left the townand passed between two thick hedges beyond which stretched on both sidesvegetable gardens.
"Where does the market gardener, Ephraim, live?" he asked, addressing awoman over the hedge who was working in the beds.
Silently, without pausing in her work, she motioned with her elbow to ahut standing isolated in the field. As he climbed over the fence, twodogs barked furiously at him. From the door of the hut came a healthyyoung woman with sunburnt face and bare arms, holding a baby.
She called off the dogs with curses, and asked Raisky whom he wished tosee. He was looking curiously round, since he did not understand howanyone except the peasant and his wife could be living there. The hut,against which were propped spades, rakes and other tools, planks andpails, had neither yard nor fence; two windows looked out on thevegetable garden, two others on the field. In the shed were two horses,here was a pig surrounded by a litter of young, and a hen wanderedaround with her chickens. A little further off stood some cars and a bigtelega.
"Does Mark Volokov live here?" asked Raisky.
The woman pointed to the telega in silence.
"That's his room," she said, pointing to one of the windows. "He sleepsin the telega."
"At this time of day?"
"He only came home this morning, probably rather drunk."
Raisky approached the telega.
"What do you want of him?" asked the woman.
"To visit him."
"Let him sleep."
"Why?"
"I am frightened here alone with him, and my husband won't be here yet.I hope he'll sleep."
"Does he insult you?"
"No, it would be wicked to say such a thing. But he is so restless andpeculiar that I am afraid of him."
She rocked the child in her arms, and Raisky looked curiously under thestraw covering. Suddenly Mark's tangled hair and beard emerged and thewoman vanished into the hut as he cried, "Fool, you don't know how toreceive visitors."
"Good-day! What has brought you here?" cried Mark as he crawled out ofthe telega and stretched himself. "A visit, perhaps."
"I was taking a walk out of sheer boredom."
"Bored! with two beautiful girls at home. You, an artist, and you aretaking a walk out of sheer boredom. Don't your affections prosper?" hewinked. "They are lovely children, especially Vera?"
"How do you know my cousins, and in what way do they concern you?" askedRaisky drily.
"Don't be vexed. Come into my drawing-room."
"Tell me rather why you sleep in the telega. Are you playing atDiogenes?"
"Yes, because I must."
They entered the hut and went into a boarded compartment, where stoodMark's bed with a thin old mattress, a thin wadded bed-cover and a tinypillow. Scattered on a shelf on the wall, and on the table lay books,two guns hung on the wall, linen and clothes were tumbled untidily onthe only chair.
"This is my salon, sit down on the bed, and I will sit on the chair. Letus take off our coats, for it is infernally hot. No ceremony, as thereare no ladies. That's right. Do you want anything? There is nothing butmilk and eggs. If you don't want any, give me a cigar."
"Many thanks. I have already breakfasted, and it will presently bedinner time."
"Yes! You live with your Aunt. Weren't you expelled after havingharboured me in the night?"
"On the contrary, she reproached me with having allowed you to go to bedwithout any dessert, and for not having demanded pillows."
"And didn't she rail against me?"
"As usual, but...."
"I know it is habit and does not come from her heart. She has the bestheart one can wish for, better than any here. She is bold, full ofcharacter, and with a solid understanding; now indeed her brain isweakening...."
"That is your opinion? You have found someone for whom you havesympathy?"
"Yes, especially in one respect. She cannot endure the Governor any morethan I can. I don't know what her reasons are; his position is enoughfor me. We neither of us like the police; we are oppressed by them. Theold lady is compelled by them to carry out all sorts of repairs; to methey pay far too much attention, find out where I live, whether I go farfrom the town, and whom I visit."
Both fell silent.
"Now we have nothing more to talk about. Why did you come here?" askedMark.
"Because I was bored."
"Fall in love."
Raisky was silent.
"With Vera," continued Mark. "Splendid girl, and she is related to you.It must be easy for you to begin a romance with her."
Raisky made an angry gesture, to which Mark replied by a burst oflaughter.
"Call the ancient wisdom to your help," he said. "Show outward coldnesswhen you are inwardly consumed, indifference of manner, pride,contempt--every little helps. Parade yourself before her as suitsyour calling."
"My calling?"
"Isn't it your calling to be eccentric?"
"Perhaps," remarked Raisky indifferently.
"I, for instance," said Mark, "should make direct for my goal, andshould be sure of victory. You may do the same, but you would do sopenetrated by the conviction that you stood on the heights and had drawnher up to you, you idealist. Show that you understand your calling, andyou may succeed. It's no use to wear yourself out with sighs, to besleepless, to watch for the raising of the lilac curtain by a white hand,to wait a week for a kindly glance."
Raisky rose, furious.
"Ah, I have hit the bull's eye."
Raisky put compulsion on himself to restrain his rage, for everyinvoluntary expression or gesture of anger would have meant nothing lessthan acquiescence.
"I should very well like to fall in love, but I cannot," he yawned,counterfeiting indifference. "It is unsuited to my years and doesn'tcure my boredom."
"Try it," teased Mark. "Let us have a wager that in a week you will
beas enamoured as a young cat. And within two months, or perhaps one, youwill have perpetrated so many follies that you will not know how to getaway from here."
"If I am, with what will you pay?" asked Raisky in a tone bordering oncontempt.
"I will give you my trousers or my gun. I possess only two pairs oftrousers. The tailor has recovered a third pair for debt. Wait, I willtry on your coat. Why, it fits as if I were poured into a mould. Trymine."
"Why?"
"I should like to see whether it suits you. Please try it on, do."
Raisky was indulgent enough to allow himself to be persuaded, and put onMark's worn, dirty coat.
"Well, does it suit?"
"It fits!"
"Wear it then. You don't wear a coat long, while for me it lasts for twoyears. Besides, whether you are contented or not I shan't take yours offmy shoulders. You would have to steal it from me."
Raisky shrugged his shoulders.
"Does the wager hold!" asked Mark.
"What put you on to that--you will excuse me--ridiculous idea?"
"Don't excuse yourself. Does it hold?"
"The wager is not equal. You have no possessions."
"Don't be disturbed on that account. I shall not have to pay. If myprophecy comes true, then you will pay me three hundred roubles, whichwould come in very conveniently."
"What nonsense," said Raisky, as he stood up and reached for his cap andstick.
"At the latest you will be in love in a fortnight. In a month you willbe groaning, wandering about like a ghost, playing your part in a drama,or possibly in a tragedy, and ending, as all your like do, with somepiece of folly. I know you, I can see through you."
"But if, instead my falling in love with her, she were to fall in lovewith me...."
"Vera! with you!"
"Yes, Vera, with me."
"Then I will find a double pledge, and bring it to you."
"You are a madman!" said Raisky, and went without bestowing a furtherglance on Mark.
"In one month's time I shall have won three hundred roubles," Mark criedafter him.
Raisky walked angrily home. "I wonder where our charmer is now," hewondered gloomily. "Probably sitting on her favourite bench, admiringthe view. I will see." As he knew Vera's habits, he could say withnearly complete certainty where she would be at any hour of the day. Hewent over to the precipice, and saw her, as he had thought, sitting onthe bench with a book in her hand. Instead of reading she looked out,now over the Volga, now into the bushes. When she saw Raisky, she roseslowly and walked over to the old house. He signed to her to wait forhim, but she either did not perceive the sign, or did not wish to do so.When she reached the courtyard she quickened her steps, and disappearedwithin the door of the old house.
Raisky could hardly control his rage. "And a stupid girl like thatthinks that I am in love with her," he thought. "She has not theremotest conception of manners." In offering the wager, Mark had stirredup all the bitterness latent in him. He hardly looked at Vera when hesat opposite her at dinner. If he happened to raise his eyes, it was asif he were dazed by a flash of lightning. Once or twice she had lookedat him in a kind, almost affectionate way, but his wild glance betrayedto her the agitation, of which she deemed herself to be the cause, andto avoid meeting his eyes she bent her head over her empty plate.
"After dinner, I shall drive with Marfinka to the hay harvest," saidTatiana Markovna to Raisky. "Will you bestow on your meadows the honourof your presence, Sir?"
"I have no inclination to go," he murmured.
"Does the world go so hard with you?" asked Tatiana Markovna. "You areindeed weighed down with work."
He looked at Vera, who was mixing red wine with water. She emptied herglass, rose, kissed her aunt's hand, and went out.
Raisky too rose, and went to his room. His aunt, Marfinka, and Vikentev,who had just happened to turn up, drove to the hay harvest, and theafternoon peace soon reigned over the house. One man crawled into thehayrick, another in the outhouse, another slept in the family carriageitself, while others took advantage of the mistress's absence to go intothe outskirts of the town.
Raisky's thoughts were filled with Vera. Although he had sworn tohimself to think of her no more, he could not conquer his thoughts.Where was she? He would go to her and talk it all over. He was inspiredonly with curiosity, he assured himself. He took his cap and hurried out.Vera was neither in the room nor in the old house; he searched for herin vain on the field, in the vegetable garden, in the thicket on thecliff, and went to look for her down along the bank of the Volga. Whenhe found no one he turned homewards, and suddenly came across her a fewsteps from him, not far from the house.
"Ah!" he cried, "there you are. I have been hunting for you everywhere."
"And I have been waiting for you here," she returned.
He felt as if he were suddenly enveloped in winter in the soft airs ofthe South.
"You--waiting for me," he said in a strange voice, and looked at her inastonishment.
"I wanted to ask you why you pursue me?"
Raisky looked at her fixedly.
"I hardly ever speak to you."
"It is true that you rarely talk to me, but you look at me in such awild and extraordinary fashion that it constitutes a kind of pursuit.And that is not all; you quietly follow my steps. You get up earlierthan I do, and wait for me to wake, draw my curtains back, and open thewindow; whatever way I take in the park, and wherever I sit down, I mustmeet you."
"Very rarely."
"Three or four times a week. It would not be often and would not annoyme, quite the reverse, if it occurred without intention. But in youreyes and steps I see only one thing, the continual effort to give me nopeace, to master my every glance, word and thought."
He was amazed at her boldness and independence, at the freedom of herspeech. He saw before him, as he imagined, the little girl who hadnervously concealed herself from him for fear that her egoism mightsuffer through the inequality of her brains, her ideas and her education.This was a new figure, a new Vera.
"What if all this exists only in your imagination?" he said undecidedly.
"Don't lie to me," she interrupted. "If you are successful in observingmy every footstep, my every moment, at least permit me to be consciousof the discomfort of such observation. I tell you plainly that itoppresses me; it is slavery; I feel like a prisoner."
"What do you ask of me?"
"My freedom."
"Freedom--I am your chevalier--therefore...."
"Therefore you will not leave a poor girl room to breathe. Tell me, whatreason have I given you to regard me differently from any other girl?"
"Beauty adores admiration; it is her right."
"Beauty has also a right to esteem and freedom. Is it an apple hangingon the other side of the hedge, that every passer-by can snatch at?"
"Don't agitate yourself, Vera!" he begged, taking her hands. "I confessmy guilt. I am an artist, have a susceptible temperament, and perhapsabandoned myself too much to my impressions. Then I am no stranger. Letus be reconciled, Vera. Tell me your wishes, and they shall be sacredlyfulfilled. I will do what pleases you, will avoid what offends you, inorder to deserve your friendship."
"I told you from the beginning, you remember, how you could show me yoursympathy, by not observing me, by letting me go my way and taking nonotice of me. Then I will come of myself, and we will fix the hours thatwe will spend together, reading or walking."
"You ask me, Vera, to be utterly indifferent to you?"
"Yes."
"Not to notice how lovely you are? To look at you as if you wereGrandmother. But even if I adore your beauty in silence from a distance,you would know it, and can you forbid me that? Passion may melt thesurface and there may steal into your heart an affection for me. Don'tlet me leave you without any hope. Can you not give me any?"
"I cannot!"
"How can you tell? There may come a time."
"No, Cousin, never."
Unmanned by terro
r, he collected his strength to say breathlessly:
"You are no longer free? You love?"
She knit her brow and looked down on the Volga.
"And is there any sin if I do? Will you not permit it, Cousin?" sheasked ironically.
"I! I, who bring you the lofty philosophy of freedom, how should I notpermit you to love. Love independently of everybody, conceal nothing,fear neither Granny nor anyone else. The dawn of freedom is red in thesky, and shall woman alone be enslaved? You love. Say so boldly, forpassion is happiness, and allow others at least to envy you."
"I concede no one the right to call me to account; I am free."
"But you are afraid of Grandmother."
"I am afraid of no one. Grandmother knows it, and respects my freedom.And my wish is that you should follow her example. That is all I wantedto say," she concluded as she rose from the bench.
"Yes, Vera, now I understand, and am in accord with you," he replied,rising also. "Here is my hand on it, that from to-day you will neitherhear nor notice my presence."
She gave her hand, but drew it rapidly back as he pressed it to his lips.
"We will see," she said. "But if you don't keep your word, we will see--"
"Say all you have to say, Vera, or my head will go to pieces."
Vera looked long at the prospect before her before she ended withdecision:
"Then however dearly I love this place, I will leave it."
"To go where?"
"God's world is wide. Au revoir, Cousin!"
A few days later Raisky got up about five o'clock. The sun was alreadyfull on the horizon, a wholesome freshness rose from garden and park,flowers breathed a deeper perfume, and the dew glittered on the grass.He dressed quickly and went out into the garden, when he suddenly metVera.
"It is not intentional, not intentional, I swear," he stammered in hisfirst surprise.
They both laughed. She picked a flower, threw it to him, and gave himher hand; and in reply to the kiss he gave she kissed him on theforehead.
"It was not intentional, Vera," he repeated. "You see yourself."
"I see you are good and kind."
"Generous," he added.
"We have not got to generosity yet," she said laughing, and took his arm."Let us go for a walk; it's a lovely morning."
He felt unspeakably happy.
"What coat are you wearing?" she asked in surprise as they walked. "Itis not yours."
"Ah, it is Mark's."
"Is he here? How did you come by his coat?"
"Are you frightened? The whole house fears him like fire?" And heexplained how he got the coat. She listened absently as they wentsilently down the main path of the garden, Vera with her eyes on theground.
Against his will he felt impelled to seek another argument with her.
"You seem to have something on your mind," she began, "which you do notwish to tell."
"I did wish to, but I feared the storm I might draw upon myself."
"You did not wish to discuss beauty once more?"
"No, no, I want to explain what my feeling for you is. I am convincedthat this time I am not in error. You have opened to me a special doorof your heart, and I recognise that your friendship would bring greathappiness, and that its soft tones would bring colour into my dull life.Do you think, Vera, that friendship is possible between a man and awoman?"
"Why not? If two such friends can make up their minds to respect oneanother's freedom, if one does not oppress the other, does not seek todiscover the secret of the other's heart, if they are in constant,natural intercourse, and know how to respect secrets...."
His eyes blazed. "Pitiless woman," he broke in.
She had seen the glance, and lowered her eyes.
"We will go in to Grandmother. She has just opened the window, and willcall us to tea?"
"One word more, Vera. You have wisdom, lucidity, decision...."
"What is wisdom?" she asked mischievously.
"Observation and experience, harmoniously applied to life."
"I have hardly any experience."
"Nature has bestowed on you a sharp eye and a clear brain."
"Is not such a possession disgraceful for a girl?"
"Your wholesome ideas, your cultivated speech...."
"You are surprised that a drop of village wisdom should have descendedon your poor sister. You would have preferred to find a fool in my place,wouldn't you, and now you are annoyed?"
"No, Vera, you intoxicate me. You do indeed forbid me to mention yourbeauty by so much as a syllable, and will not hear why I place it sohigh. Beauty is the aim and at the same time the driving power of art,and I am an artist. The beauty of which I speak is no material thing,she does not kindle her fires with the glow of passionate desire alone;more especially she awakens the man in man, arouses thought, inspirescourage, fertilises the creative power of genius, even when that geniusstands at the culmination of its dignity and power; she does not scatterher beams for trifles, does not besmirch purity--she is womanly wisdom.You are a woman, Vera, and understand what I mean. Your hand will not beraised to punish the man, the artist, for this worship of beauty."
"According to you wisdom lies in keeping these rules before one's eyesas the guiding thread of life, in which case I am not wise, I have not'received this baptism.'"
An emotion closely related to sadness shone in her eyes, as she gazedupwards for a moment before she entered the house. Raisky anxiously toldhimself that she was as enigmatic as night itself, and he wondered whatwas the origin of these foreign ideas and whether her young life wasalready darkened.