Chapter I (1)

... A few days after his appointment as instructor in one of the provincial universities, Ippolít Sergyéevitch Polkánoff received a telegram from his sister, from her estate in a distant forest district on the Vólga.

The telegram briefly announced:

"My husband is dead. For God's sake, come at once to my assistance. Elizavéta."

This alarming summons unpleasantly agitated Ippolít Sergyéevitch, interfering with his projects and his frame of mind. He had already decided to spend the summer in the country, at the house of one of his comrades, and to do a great deal of work there, in order to prepare himself to do justice to his lectures; and now, here it was necessary to travel more than a thousand versts from St. Petersburg and from the place of his appointment, in order to comfort a woman who had lost her husband, with whom, judging from her own letters, her life had been far from sweet.

He had seen his sister, for the last time, four years previously, had corresponded with her rarely, and dong ago there had been established between them those purely formal relations which are so common between two relatives who are separated by distance, and by dissimilarity of their life-interests.

The telegram evoked in him the memory of his sister's husband. The latter was a stout, good-natured man, fond of eating and drinking. His face was round, covered with a network of red veins, and his eyes were merry and small; he had a way of roguishly screwing up his left eye, and smiling sweetly, as he sang in atrocious French:

"Regardez par ci, regardez par là...."

And Ippolít Sergyéevitch found it difficult to believe, that that jolly young fellow was dead, because common-place people usually live a long time.

His sister had borne herself toward the weaknesses of this man with a half-scornful condescension; being anything but a stupid woman, she had comprehended, that if you shoot at a stone, you merely lose your arrows. And it was not likely that she was greatly afflicted by his death.

But, nevertheless, it was not easy to refuse her request. He could work at her house quite as well as anywhere else....

After further meditation in this direction, Ippolít Sergyéevitch decided to go, and, a couple of weeks later, on a warm June evening, fatigued with a journey of forty versts[1] by posting-wagon, from the wharf to the village, he was seated at the table opposite his sister, on a terrace which overlooked the park, drinking exquisite tea.

Along the balustrade of the terrace, lilac and acacia bushes grew luxuriantly; the slanting rays of the sun, penetrating through the foliage, quivered in the air, in slender, golden ribbons. A tracery of shadows lay upon the table, closely set with country viands; the air was filled with the fragrance of the lindens, the lilacs, and the damp earth, heated by the sun. In the park birds were chirping noisily; now and then a bee or a wasp flew to the terrace and buzzed anxiously, as it hovered about the table. Elizavéta Sergyéevna took a napkin in her hand, and flourished it in the air, in vexation, chasing the bees and the wasps off into the park.

[1] A verst is two-thirds of a mile.--Translator.

Ippolít Sergyéevitch had already succeeded in convincing himself that his sister had not been particularly shocked by the fact of her husband's death, that she was gazing at him, her brother, in a searching way, and as she chatted with him, was concealing something from him. He had become accustomed to think of her, as a woman entirely engrossed in the cares of housekeeping, broken down with the disorders of her wedded life, and he had expected to behold her nervous, pale and exhausted. But now, as he looked at her oval face, covered with healthy sunburn, calm, confident, and extremely enlivened by the intelligent gleam of her large, bright eyes, he felt that he was pleasantly disappointed; and as he lent an ear to her remarks, he tried to hear the undercurrent, and to understand what it was she was withholding from him.

"I was prepared for this,--" she said, in a high, calm contralto, and her voice vibrated charmingly on the upper notes.--"After his second shock, he complained almost daily of pains in the heart, of its irregular beating, of insomnia ... but, nevertheless, when they brought him home from the fields--I could scarcely stand on my feet.... They tell me that he got very excited out there, and shouted...? and on the day before he had been to visit Ólesoff--a landed proprietor, a retired colonel, a drunkard and a cynic, broken down with the gout. By the way, he has a daughter--there's a treasure, I can tell you I--You must make her acquaintance...."

"If it cannot be avoided," interposed Ippolít Sergyéevitch, glancing at his sister with a smile.

"It cannot! She is often at our house ... but now, of course, she will come here more frequently than ever,--" she replied to him, with a smile also.

"Is she on the lookout for a husband? I'm not fitted for the part."

His sister looked him steadily in the face, which was oval, thin, with small, pointed, black beard, and a lofty, white brow.

"Why are you not fitted for the part? Of course, I am speaking in general, without any idea in connection with Miss Ólesoff,--you will understand why when you see her ... but, surely, you are thinking of marrying?"

"Not just yet,--" he answered her briefly, raising from his glass his light-gray eyes with a cold gleam.

"Yes,--" said Elizavéta Sergyéevna thoughtfully,--"at the age of thirty it is both late and early, for a man to take that step...."

It pleased him that she had ceased to speak of her husband's death, but why had she summoned him to her so loudly and in so frightened a manner?

"A man should marry at twenty or at forty," she said pensively,--"in that way, there is less risk of deceiving oneself or of deceiving another person ... but if you do make a mistake, then, in the first case, you pay for it with the freshness of your feelings, and in the second ... at least by your outward position, which is almost always solid in the case of a man of forty."

It struck him that she was saying this more for herself than for him, and he did not interrupt her, but leaned back in his arm-chair and deeply inhaled the aromatic air.

"As I was saying--he had been at Ólesoff's on the day before, and, of course, he drank there. Well, and so...." Elizavéta Sergyéevna shook her head sadly.--"Now ... I am left alone ... although, after the second year of my life with him, I felt myself inwardly quite alone. But now my position is so strange! I am twenty-eight years old, I have not lived, I have merely been attached to the service of my husband and children,... the children are dead. And I ... what am I now? What am I to do, and how am I to live? I would sell this estate, and go abroad, but his brother lays claim to the inheritance, and there may be a lawsuit. I will not give up what belongs to me, without legal grounds for so doing, and I see none in the claim of his brother. What do you think about it?..."

"I am not a lawyer, you know,--" laughed Ippolít Sergyéevitch.--"But ... tell me all about this, and we shall see. That brother--has he written to you?"

"Yes ... and quite roughly. He is a gambler, a ruined man, who has sunk very low ... my husband did not like him, although they had much in common."

"We shall see!--" said Ippolít Sergyéevitch, and rubbed his hands with satisfaction. He was delighted to know why his sister needed him, he did not like anything that was not clear and definite. His first care was the preservation of his inward equanimity, and if anything obscure perturbed that equanimity,--a troubled disquietude and irritation arose in his soul, which anxiously incited him to clear up the thing he did not understand as promptly as possible.

"To speak frankly,"--explained Elizavéta softly, and without looking at her brother,--"this stupid claim has alarmed me. I am so worn out, Ippolít, I do so want to rest ... and here, something is beginning again."

She sighed heavily, and taking his glass, she continued in a melancholy tone, which tickled her brother's ears unpleasantly:

"Eight years of life with such a man as my deceased husband give me the right, I think, to a rest. Any other woman in my place,--a woman with a less developed sense of duty and respectability--would long ago have broken that heavy chain, but I wore it, although I fainted under its weight. But the death of my children--ah, Ippolít, if you only knew what I endured when I lost them!"

He looked into her face with an expression of sympathy, but her plaints did not touch his soul. He did not like her language, a bookish sort of language, which was not natural to a person who feels deeply, and her bright eyes flitted strangely from side to side, rarely coming to a pause on anything. Her gestures were soft, and cautious, and an inward chill breathed forth from her whole finely-formed figure.

Some sort of a merry bird perched on the balustrade of the terrace, twittering, hopped along it, and flew away. The brother and sister followed it with their eyes, as they sat a few seconds in silence.

"Does anyone come to see you? Do you read?"--asked the brother, as he lighted a cigarette, thinking how delightful it would be to sit in silence, on that magnificent quiet evening, in a comfortable easy-chair, there on the terrace, listening to the quiet rustling of the foliage and waiting for the night, which would come, and extinguish the sounds, and light up the stars.

"Várenka comes, and once in a while, Mrs. Banártzeff ... do you remember her? Liudmila Vasílievna ... she, also, is not happy with her husband.. hut she understands how to avoid taking offence. A great many men used to come to see my husband,--but not a single one of them was interesting! Decidedly, there is not a soul with whom to exchange a word ... agriculture, hunting, county tittle-tattle, gossip--that is all they talk about.... However, there is one ... a bachelor of law--Benkóvsky ... young, and very highly educated. You remember the Benkóvskys? Wait! I think someone is coming."

"Who is coming ... that Benkóvsky?"--inquired Ippolít Sergyéevitch.

For some reason, his query set his sister to laughing; as she laughed, she rose from her chair, and said in a voice that was new to him:

"Várenka!"

"Ah!"

"Let us see what you will say about her.... Here she has made the conquest of everybody. But what a monster she is, from a spiritual point of view! How-ever--you shall see for yourself."

"I don't care about it," he declared indifferently, stretching himself out in his arm-chair.

"I will be back directly,"--said Elizavéta Sergyéevna, as she went away.

"But she will present herself without your help," he said with concern.

"Yes, I'll be back directly!" his sister called to him from the room.

He frowned, and remained in his chair, gazing into the park. The swift beat of a horse's hoofs became audible, and the rumble of wheels on the ground.

Before Ippolít Sergyéevitch's eyes stood rows of aged, gnarled linden trees, maples, and oaks, enveloped in the evening twilight. Their angular branches were interwoven one with another, forming overhead a thick roof of fragrant verdure, and all of them, decrepit with time, with rifted bark and broken boughs, seemed to form a living and friendly family of beings, closely united in an aspiration upward, toward the light. But their bark was thickly covered with a yellow efflorescence of mould, at their roots young trees had sprung up luxuriantly, and from this cause, on the old trees there were many dead branches, which swung in the air like lifeless skeletons.

Ippolít Sergyéevitch gazed at them, and felt an inclination to doze off there in his arm-chair, under the breath of the ancient park.

Between the trunks and boughs gleamed crimson patches of the horizon, and against this vivid background, the trees seemed still more gloomy, and wasted away. Along the avenue, which ran from the terrace into the dusky distance, the thick shadows were slowly moving, and the stillness increased every minute, inspiring confused fancies. Ippolít Sergyéevitch' imagination, yielding to the sorcery of the evening, depicted from the shadows the silhouette of a woman whom he knew, and his own by her side. They walked in silence down the avenue, into the distance, she pressed closely to him, and he felt the warmth of her body.

"How do you do!"--rang out a thick chest voice.

He sprang to his feet, and looked round, somewhat disconcerted.

Before him stood a young girl, of medium stature, in a gray gown, over her head was thrown something white and airy, like a bridal veil,--that was all he noticed in that first moment.

She offered him her hand, inquiring:

"Ippolít Sergyéevitch, is it not? Miss Ólesoff.. I already knew that you were to arrive to-day, and came to see what you were like. I have never seen any learned men,--and I did not know what they might be like."

A strong, warm, little hand pressed his hand, and he, somewhat abashed by this unexpected attack, bowed to her in silence, was angry at himself for his confusion, and thought that, when he should look at her face, he would find there frank and coarse coquetry. But when he did look at it, he beheld large, dark eyes, which were smiling artlessly and caressingly, illuminating the handsome face. Ippolít Sergyéevitch remembered that he had seen just that sort of a face, proud with healthy beauty, in an old Italian picture. The same little mouth with splendid lips, the same brow, arched and lofty, and the huge eyes beneath it.

"Permit me ... I will order some lights ... pray be seated...." he requested her.

"Don't trouble yourself, I am quite at home here," she said, seating herself in his chair....

He stood at the table facing her, and gazed at her, feeling that this was awkward, and that it behooved him to speak. But she, not in the least confused by his steady gaze, spoke herself. She asked him how he had come, whether he liked the country, whether he would remain there long; he answered her in monosyllables, and various fragmentary thoughts flashed through his mind. He was stunned, as it were, by a blow, and his brain, always clear, now grew turbid in the presence of feelings suddenly and chaotically aroused by force. His enchantment with her struggled with irritation at himself, and curiosity struggled with something that was akin to fear. But this young girl, blooming with health, sat opposite him, leaning against the back of her chair, closely enveloped in the material of her costume, which permitted a glimpse of the magnificent outlines of her shoulders, bosom and torso, and in a melodious voice full of masterful notes, uttered to him some trivialities, such as are usual when two unacquainted persons meet for the first time. Her dark chestnut hair curled charmingly, and her eyebrows and eyes were darker than her hair. On her dark neck, around her rosy, transparent ear, the skin quivered, announcing the swift circulation of the blood in her veins, a dimple made its appearance every time a smile disclosed her small, white teeth, and every fold of her garments breathed forth an exasperating seduction. There was something rapacious in the arch of her nose, and in her small teeth, which shone forth from between ripe lips, and her attitude, full of unstudied charm, reminded one of the grace of well-fed and petted kittens.

It seemed to Ippolít Sergyéevitch that he had become two persons: one half of his being was absorbed in this sensual beauty, and was slavishly contemplating it, the second half was mechanically noting the existence of the first, and feeling that it had lost its power over it. He replied to the girl's questions, and put some questions to her himself, not being in a condition to tear his eyes from her entrancing figure. He had already called her, to himself, a luxurious female, and had inwardly laughed at himself, but this did not annihilate his double existence. Thus it went on, until his sister made her appearance on the terrace, with the exclamation:

"See what a clever creature! I was hunting for her yonder, and she is already...."

"I went round by the park."

"Have you made each other's acquaintance?"

"Oh, yes! I thought that Ippolít Sergyéevitch was bald, at least!"

"Shall I pour you some tea?"

"Please do."

Ippolít Sergyéevitch withdrew a little apart from them, and stood near the steps which led down into the park. He passed his hand over his face, and then drew his fingers across his eyes, as though he were wiping the dust from his face and eyes. He was ashamed of himself for having yielded to a burst of emotion, and this shame soon gave way to irritation against the young girl. To himself, he characterized the scene with her as a Kazák attack on a prospective husband, and he felt like announcing himself to her as a man who was utterly indifferent to her challenging beauty.

"I'm going to stay over night with you, and spend all day to-morrow here.." she said to his sister.

"And how about Vasíly Stepánovitch?" asked his sister, in surprise.

"Aunt Lutchítzky is visiting us, she will look after him.... You know, that papa is very fond of her."

"Excuse me,..." said Ippolít Sergyéevitch drily,--"I am extremely fatigued, and will go and rest...."

He bowed and departed, and Várenka's exclamation of approbation followed him:

"You ought to have done so long ago!"

In the tone of her exclamation he detected only good nature, but he set it down as an attempt to ingratiate herself, and as false.

The room which had served his sister's husband as a study had been prepared for him. In the middle of it stood a heavy, awkward writing-table, before which was an oaken arm-chair; along one of the walls, almost for its entire length, stretched a broad, ragged Turkish divan, on the other, a harmonium, and two book-cases. Several large, soft chairs, a small smoking table beside the divan, and a chess-table at the window, completed the furniture of the room. The ceiling was low and blackened with smoke. From the walls dark spots, which were pictures and engravings of some sort, in coarse, gilded frames, peered forth--everything was heavy, old, and emitted a disagreeable odor. On the table stood a large lamp with a blue shade, and the light from it fell upon the floor.

Ippolít Sergyéevitch halted at the edge of this circle of light, and feeling a sensation of confused trepidation, glanced at the windows of the room. There were two of them, and outside, in the gloom of evening the dark silhouettes of the trees were outlined. He went to the windows, and opened both of them. Then the room was filled with the fragrance of the blossoming lindens, and with it floated in a burst of hearty laughter in a chest voice.

On the divan a bed had been made up for him, and it occupied a little more than half of the divan. He glanced at it, and began to undo his necktie; but then, with an abrupt movement, he pushed an arm-chair to the window, and seated himself in it, with a scowl.

This sensation of incomprehensible trepidation disquieted his mind, and irritated him. The feeling of dissatisfaction with himself rarely presented itself to him, but when it did, it never seized hold upon him powerfully, or for long--he managed to get rid of it promptly. He was convinced that a man should and can understand his emotions, and develop or suppress them; and when people talked to him about the mysterious complication of man's psychical life, he grinned ironically, and called such opinions metaphysics. It was all the worse for him now to feel that he was entering the sphere of some incomprehensible emotions or other.

He asked himself: Is it possible that the meeting with this healthy and handsome young girl--who must be extremely sensual and stupid,--was it possible that this meeting could have such a strange influence upon him? And after having carefully scrutinized the series of impressions of that day, he was compelled to answer himself in the affirmative. Yes, it was so because she had taken his mind unawares, because he was extremely fatigued with the journey, and had been in a dreamy mood which was quite unusual for him at the moment when she made her appearance before him.

This reflection somewhat soothed him, and she immediately presented herself to his eyes in her splendid, maidenly beauty. He contemplated her, closing his eyes and nervously inhaling the smoke of his cigarette, but as he contemplated her, he criticised.

"In reality,"--he reflected,--"she is vulgar: there is too much blood and muscle in her healthy body, and there are too few nerves. Her ingenuous face is not intelligent, and the pride which beams in the frank gaze of her deep, dark eyes is the pride of a woman who is convinced of her beauty, and is spoiled by the admiration of men. My sister said that this Várenka makes a conquest of everybody."--Of course, she was trying to make a conquest of him, also. But he had come hither to work, and not to frolic, and she would soon understand that.

"But am not I thinking a great deal about her, for a first encounter?"--flashed through his mind.

The disk of the moon, huge and blood-red in hue, was rising somewhere, far away behind the trees of the park: it gazed forth from the darkness like the eye of a monster, born of it. Faint sounds, coming from the direction of the village, were borne upon the air.... Now and then, in the grass beneath the window, a rustling resounded; it must be a tortoise or a hedgehog on the prowl. A nightingale was singing somewhere. And the moon mounted slowly in the sky, as though the fateful necessity of its movement was understood by it and wearied it.

Flinging his cigarette, which had gone out, from the window, Ippolít Sergyéevitch rose, undressed, and extinguished the lamp. Then the darkness poured into the room from the garden, the trees moved up to the windows, as though desirous of looking in; on the floor lay two streaks of moonlight, still faint and turbid.

The springs of the divan creaked shrilly under the body of Ippolít Sergyéevitch, and overcome by the pleasant coolness of the linen sheets, he stretched himself out, and lay still on his back. Soon he was dozing, and under his window he heard someone's cautious footsteps and a thick whisper:

"... Má-arya ... Are you there? Hey?" ...

With a smile, he fell fast asleep.

And in the morning, when he awoke in the brilliant sunlight, which filled his room, he smiled again at the memory of the preceding evening, and of the young girl. He presented himself at tea carefully dressed, cold and serious, as was befitting a learned man; but when he saw that his sister was seated alone at the table, he involuntarily burst out:

"But where is...."

His sister's sly smile stopped him before he had finished his question, and he seated himself, in silence, at the table. Elizavéta Sergyéevna scrutinized his costume in detail, smiling all the while, and paying no heed to his involuntary scowl. Her significant smile enraged him.

"She rose long ago, and she and I have been to bathe, and she must be in the park now ... and will soon make her appearance,--" explained Elizavéta Sergyéevna.

"How circumstantial you are,--" he said, with a laugh.--"Please give orders to have my things unloaded immediately after tea."

"And have them taken out?"

"No, no, that's not necessary, I'll do that myself, otherwise everything will get mixed up.... There are books and candy for you...."

"Thanks! That's nice of you ... and here comes Várenka!"

She made her appearance in the doorway, in a thin, white gown, which fell from her shoulders to her feet in rich folds. Her costume resembled a child's blouse, and in it she looked like a child. Pausing for a second at the door, she asked:

"Have you been waiting for me?--" and approached the table as noiselessly as a cloud.

Ippolít Sergyéevitch bowed to her in silence, and as he shook her hand, her arm being bared to the elbow, he perceived a delicate odor of violets which emanated from her.

"How you have scented yourself!" exclaimed Elizavéta Sergyéevna.

"Is it any more than I always do? You are fond of perfumes, Ippolít Sergyéevitch? I am--awfully! When the violets are in bloom, I pluck them every morning after my bath, and rub them in my hands,--I learned that in the pro-gymnasium.... Do you like violets?"

He drank his tea, and did not glance at her, but he felt her eyes on his face.

"I really have never thought about it--whether I like them or not,--" he said drily, shrugging his shoulders, but as he involuntarily glanced at her, he smiled.

Shaded by the snow-white material of her gown, her face flamed with a magnificent flush, and her deep eyes beamed with clear joy. She breathed forth health, freshness, unconscious happiness. She was as good as a bright May morning in the north.

"You haven't thought about it?"--she exclaimed.--"But how is that ... seeing that you are a botanist."

"But not a floriculturist,--" he explained briefly, and involuntarily reflecting that this might be rude, he turned his eyes away from her face.

"But are not botany and floriculture one and the same?--" she inquired, after a pause.

His sister laughed unrestrainedly. And he suddenly became conscious that this laugh made him writhe, for some reason, and he exclaimed pityingly to himself:

"Yes, she is stupid!"

But later on, as he explained to her the difference between botany and floriculture, he softened his verdict, and pronounced her merely ignorant. As she listened to his intelligent and serious remarks, she gazed at him with the eyes of an attentive pupil, and this pleased him. As he talked, he often turned his eyes from her face to his sister's, and in her gaze, which was immovably fixed on Várenka's face, he discerned eager envy. This interfered with the speech, as it called forth in him a sentiment allied to disdain for his sister.

"Ye-es,--" said the young girl slowly,--"so that's how it is! And is botany an interesting science?"

"Hm! you see, one must look upon science from the point of view of its utility to men,--" he explained, with a sigh. Her lack of development, allied with her beauty, increased his compassion for her. But she, meditatively tapping the edge of her cup with her teaspoon, asked him:

"Of what utility can it be, that you know how burdock grows?

"The same which we deduce from studying the phenomena of life in any one man."

"A man and a burdock...." she smiled. "Does one man live like all the rest?"

He found it strange that this uninteresting conversation did not fatigue him.

"Do I eat and drink in the same way as the peasants?" she continued seriously, contracting her brows. "And do many people live as I do?"

"How do you live?"--he inquired, foreseeing that this question would change the course of the conversation. He wished to do so, because a malicious, sneering element had now been added to the envy in the gaze which his sister had fastened upon Várenka.

"How do I live?--" the girl suddenly flushed up.--"Well!--" And she even closed her eyes with satisfaction. "You know, I wake up in the morning, and if the day is bright, I immediately feel dreadfully gay! It is as though I had received a costly and beautiful gift, which I had long been wanting to possess.... I run and take my bath--we have a river with springs--the water is cold, and it fairly nips the body! There are very deep spots, and I plunge straight into them, head first, from the bank--splash! It fairly bums one, all over.. you fly into the water as from a precipice, and there is a ringing in your head.... You come to the surface, tear yourself out of the water, and the sun looks down at you and laughs! Then I go home through the forest, I gather flowers, I inhale the forest air until I am intoxicated; when I arrive, tea is ready! I drink tea, and before me stand flowers.. and the sun gazes at me.... Ah, if you only knew how I love the sun! Then the day advances, and housekeeping cares begin.. everyone loves me at home, they all understand and obey at once,--and everything whirls on like a wheel until the evening .. then the sun sets, the moon and the stars make their appearance ... how beautiful and how new this always is! you understand! I cannot say it intelligibly.. why it is so good to live!... But perhaps you feel just the same yourself, do you? Surely, you understand why such a life is good and interesting?"

"Yes ... of course!--" he assented, ready to wipe the venomous smile from his sister's face with his hand.

He looked at Várenka, and did not restrain himself from admiring her, as she quivered with the desire to impart to him the strength of the exultation which filled her being, but this ecstasy of hers heightened his feeling of pity for her to the degree of a painfully-poignant sensation. He beheld before him a being permeated with the charm of vegetable life, full of rough poetry, overwhelmingly beautiful, but not ennobled by brains. "And in the winter? Are you fond of winter? It is all white, healthy, stimulating, it challenges you to contend with it...."

A sharp ring of the bell interrupted her speech. Elizavéta Sergyéevna had rung, and when a tall maid, with a round, kind face, and roguish eyes, flew into the room, she said to her, in a weary voice:

"Clear away the dishes, Másha!"

Then she began to walk up and down the room, in a preoccupied way, shuffling her feet.

All this somewhat sobered the enthusiastic young girl; she twitched her shoulders as though she were shaking something from them, and rather abashed she asked Ippolít Sergyéevitch:

"Have I bored you with my stupid tales?"

"Come, how can you say so?"--he protested.

"No, seriously,--I have made myself appear stupid to you?"--she persisted.

"But why?!"--exclaimed Ippolít Sergyéevitch and was surprised that he had said it so warmly and sincerely.

"I am wild ... that is to say, I am not cultivated ..." she said apologetically.--"But I am very glad to talk with you ... because you are a learned man, and so ... unlike what I imagined you to be."

"And what did you imagine me to be like?"--he queried, with a smile.

"I thought you would always be talking about various wise things.. why, and how, and this is not so, but this other way, and everybody is stupid, and I alone am wise.... Papa had a friend visiting him, he was a colonel too, like papa, and he was learned, like you.. But he was a military learned man ... what do you call it ... of the General Staff...? and he was frightfully puffed up ... in my opinion, he did not even know anything, but simply bragged...."

"And you imagined that I was like that?"--enquired Ippolít Sergyéevitch.

She was disconcerted, blushed, and springing from her chair, she ran about the room in an absurd way, saying in confusion:

"Akh, how can you think so ... now, could I...."

"Well, see here, my dear children...." remarked Elizavéta Sergyéevna, scanning them with her eyes screwed up,--"I'm going off to attend to something about the housekeeping, and I leave you ... to the will of God!"

And she vanished, with a laugh, rustling her skirts as she went. Ippolít Sergyéevitch looked after her reproachfully, and reflected, that he must have a talk with her about her way of behaving toward this really very charming, though undeveloped young girl.

"Do you know, I have an idea--would you like to go in the boat? We will drive to the forest, and then have a stroll there, and be back by dinner-time. Shall we? I'm awfully glad that the day is so bright, and that I'm not at home.... For papa has another attack of gout, and I should have been obliged to fuss about him. And papa is capricious when he is ill."

Amazed at her frank egotism, he did not immediately reply to her in the affirmative, and when he did reply, he recalled the intention, which had arisen in him the evening before, and with which he had emerged from his chamber that morning. But, surely, she had afforded no ground, so far, for suspicion of a desire to conquer his heart? In her speeches, everything was perceptible except coquetry. And, in conclusion, why not spend one day with such ... an undoubtedly original young girl?

"And do you know how to row? Never mind if you do it badly ... I will do it myself, I am strong. And the boat is so light. Shall we go?"

They went out upon the terrace, and descended into the park. By the side of his tall, thin figure, she appeared shorter and more plump. He offered her his arm, but she declined it.

"Why? It is nice when one is tired, but otherwise, it only hinders one in walking."

He smiled as he looked at her through his eyeglasses, and walked on, adjusting his stride to her pace, which greatly pleased him. Her walk was light and graceful,--her white gown floated around her form, but not a single fold undulated. In one hand she held a parasol, with the other she gesticulated freely and gracefully, as she told him about the beauty of the suburbs of the village. Her arm, hared to the elbow, was strong and brown, covered with a golden down, and as it moved through the air, it compelled Ippolít Sergyéevitch's eyes to follow it attentively.... And again, in the dark depths of his soul, a confused, incomprehensible apprehension of something began to tremble. He tried to annihilate it, asking himself: What had prompted him to follow this young girl? And he answered himself:--curiosity, a calm and pure desire to contemplate her beauty.

"Yonder is the river! Go and take your seat in the boat, and I will get the oars at once...."

And she disappeared among the trees before he could ask her to show him where he could find the oars.

In the still, cold water of the river, the trees were reflected upside down; he seated himself in the boat, and gazed at them. These spectral images were more splendid and beautiful than the living trees, which stood on the bank, shading the water with their curved and gnarled branches. Their reflection flattered them, thrusting into the background what was deformed, and creating in the water a clear and harmonious fantasy, on the foundation of the paltry reality, disfigured by time.

As he admired the transparent picture, surrounded by the silence and the gleam of the sun which was not yet hot, and drank in along with the air the songs of the larks full of the joy of existence, Ippolít Sergyéevitch felt springing into life within him a sensation of repose which was novel and agreeable to him, which caressed his brain, and lulled to sleep its constant and rebellious striving to understand and to explain. Quiet peace reigned around, not a leaf quivered on the trees, and in this peace the mute triumph of nature was unceasingly in progress, life, always smitten with death but invincible, was being soundlessly created, and death was working quietly, smiting all things, but never winning the victory. And the blue sky shone in triumphant beauty.

In the background of the picture in the water of the river, a white beauty, with a smile on her face, made her appearance. She stood there, with the oars in her hands, as though inviting him to go to her, mute, very lovely, and she seemed to have dropped down from the sky.

Ippolít Sergyéevitch knew that it was Várenka, emerging from the park, and that she was looking at him, but he did not wish to destroy the enchantment by a sound or a movement.

"Say, what a dreamer you are!--" her astonished exclamation rang out on the air.

Then, with regret, he turned away from the water, glanced at the girl, who was descending vivaciously and easily to the shore, down the steep path from the park. And his regret vanished with this glance at her, for this girl was, in reality, enchantingly beautiful.

"I could not possibly have imagined that you were fond of dreaming! You have such a stem, serious face.. You will steer: is that right? We will row upstream.. it is more beautiful there ... and, in general, it is more interesting to go against the current, because then you row, you get exercise, you feel yourself...."

The boat, pushed out from the shore, rocked lazily on the sleepy water, but a powerful stroke of the oars immediately put it alongside of the bank, and rolling from side to side under a second stroke, it glided lightly forward.

"We will row under the hilly shore, because it is shady there.." said the young girl, as she cut the water with skilful strokes. "Only, the current is weak here,... but on the Dnyépr,--Aunt Lutchítzky has an estate there--it's a terror, I can tell you! It fairly tears the oars out of your hands ... you haven't seen the rapids of the Dnyépr?..."

"Only the threshold of the door,"[2] Ippolít Sergyéevitch tried to pun.

[2] _Poróg_, a threshold,--porogt, rapide, in Russian.--Translator.

"I have been through them," she said, laughing.--"It was fine! One day, they came near smashing the boat, and in that case, we should infallibly have been drowned...."

"Well, that would not have been fine at all," said Ippolít Sergyéevitch seriously.

"What of that? I'm not in the least afraid of death .. although I love to live. Perhaps it will be as interesting there as it is here on earth...."

"And perhaps there is nothing at all there.." he said, glancing at her with curiosity.

"Well, how can there help being!"--she exclaimed, with conviction. --"Of course there is!"

He decided not to interfere with her--let her go on philosophizing; at the proper moment he would stop her, and make her spread out before him the whole miserable little world of her imagination. She sat opposite him, with her small feet resting against a cross-bar, nailed to the bottom of the boat, and with every stroke of the oars, she bent her body backward. Then, beneath the thin material of her gown, her virgin bosom was outlined in relief, high, springy, quivering with the exercise.

"She does not wear corsets," said Ippolít Sergyéevitch to himself, dropping his eyes. But there they rested on her tiny feet. Pressed against the bottom of the boat, her legs were tensely stretched, and at such times their outlines were visible to the knees.

"Did she put on that idiotic dress on purpose?"--he said to himself in vexation, and turned away, to look at the high shore.

They had passed the park, and now they were floating under a steep cliff; from it swung curly pea-vines, the long slender wreaths of pumpkin, with their velvety leaves, large yellow circles of the sunflower, standing on the edge of the abyss, looked down into the water. The other shore, low and smooth, stretched away into the distance, to the green walls of the forest, and was thickly covered with grass, succulent and brilliant in hue; pale blue and dark blue flowers, as pretty as the eyes of children, peered caressingly forth from it at the boat. And ahead of them stood the dark-green forest--and the river pierced its way into it, like a piece of cold steel.

"Aren't you warm?" asked Várenka.

He glanced at her, and felt abashed:--upon her brow, beneath her crown of waving hair, glistened drops of perspiration, and her breast heaved high and rapidly.

"Pray forgive me!"--he exclaimed penitently.--"I forgot myself in looking about me ... you are tired ... give me the oars!"

"I will not give them to you! Do you think I am tired? That is an insult to me! We haven't gone two versts yet.... No, keep your seat ... we will land presently, and take a stroll."

It was evident from her face, that it was useless to argue with her, and shrugging his shoulders with vexation, he made no reply, thinking to himself with displeasure: "It is plain that she considers me weak."

"You see--this is the road to our house,--" she pointed it out to him on the shore, with a nod of her head.--"Here is the ford across the river, and from here to our house is fourteen versts. It is fine on our place, also, more beautiful than on your Polkánovka."

"Do you live in the country during the winter?" he asked.

"Why not? You see, I have the entire charge of the housekeeping, papa never rises from his chair.... He is carried through the rooms."

"But you must find it tiresome to live in that way?"

"Why? I have an awful lot to do ... and only one assistant--Nikon, papa's orderly. He is already an old man, and he drinks, besides, but he's awfully strong, and knows his business. The peasants are afraid of him he beats them, and they also once beat him terribly ... very terribly! He is remarkably honest, and he's devoted to papa and me ... he loves us like a dog! And I love him, too. Perhaps you have read a romance, where the hero is an officer, Count Grammont, and he had an orderly also, Sadi-Coco?"

"I have not read it,--" confessed the young savant modestly.

"You must be sure to read it--it is a good romance,--" she advised him with conviction.--"When Nikon pleases me, I call him Sadi-Coco. At first he used to get angry with me for that, but one day I read that romance to him, and now he knows that it is flattering for him to be like Sadi-Coco."

Ippolít Sergyéevitch looked at her, as a European looks at a delicately executed but fantastically-deformed statue of a Chinaman; with a mixture of amazement, compassion and curiosity. But she, with ardor, related to him the feats of Sadi-Coco, filled with disinterested devotion to Count Louis Grammont.

"Excuse me, Varvára[3] Vasílievna," he interrupted her,--"but have you read the romances of the Russian writers?"

[3] Várenka it the caressing diminutive of Varvára.--Translator.

"Oh, yes! But I don't like them--they are tiresome, very tiresome! And they always write things which I know just as well as they do. They cannot invent anything interesting, and almost everything they say is true."

"But don't you like the truth?"--asked Ippolít Sergyéevitch kindly.

"Ah, no indeed! I always speak the truth, straight to people's faces, and...."

She paused, reflected, and inquired:

"What is there to like in that? It is my habit, how can one like it?"

He did not manage to say anything to her on this point, because she quickly and loudly gave the command:

"Steer to the right ... be quick! To that oak-tree, yonder.... Aï, how awkward you are!"

The boat did not obey his hand, and ran ashore broadside on, although he churned the water forcibly with his oar.

"Never mind, never mind," she said, and suddenly rising to her feet, she sprang over the side.

Ippolít Sergyéevitch uttered a low shriek, and stretched his arms toward her, but she was standing uninjured on the shore, holding the chain of the boat in her hands, and apologetically asking him:

"Did I frighten you?"

"I thought you would fall into the water,--" he said, softly.

"But could anyone fall there? And moreover, the water is not deep there,--" she defended herself, dropping her eyes, and drawing the boat to the bank. And he, as he sat at the stem, reflected that he ought to have done that.

"Do you see what a forest there is?--" she said, when he had stepped out on the bank, and stood beside her.--"Isn't it fine here? There are no such beautiful forests around St. Petersburg, are there?"

In front of them lay a narrow road, hemmed in on both sides by tree trunks of different sizes. Under their feet the gnarled roots, crushed by the wheels of peasant-carts, lay outstretched, and over them was a thick tent of boughs, with here and there, high aloft, blue scraps of sky. The rays of sunlight, slender as violin-strings, quivered in the air, obliquely intersecting this narrow, green corridor. The odor of rotting foliage, of mushrooms and birch trees, surrounded them. Birds flitted past, disturbing the solemn stillness of the forest with their lively songs and anxious twittering. A woodpecker was tapping somewhere, a bee was buzzing, and in front of them, as though showing them the road, two butterflies fluttered, in pursuit of each other.

They strolled slowly on. Ippolít Sergyéevitch was silent, and did not interfere with Várenka's finding words wherewith to express her thoughts, while she said warmly to him:

"I don't like to read about the peasants; what can there be that is interesting in their lives? I know them, I live with them, and I see that people do not write accurately, do not write the truth about them. They are described as such wretched creatures, but they are only base, and there is nothing to pity them for. They want only one thing--to cheat us, to steal something from us. They are always importuning us, always moaning, they're disgusting, dirty ... and they're clever, oh! they're even very cunning. Oh, if you only knew how they torture me sometimes!"

She had warmed up to her theme now, and wrath and bad humor were expressed on her face. Evidently, the peasants occupied a large place in her life; she rose to hatred, as she depicted them. Ippolít Sergyéevitch was astonished at the violence of her agitation but, as he did not care to hear these sallies from the master's point of view, he interrupted the young girl:

"You were speaking of the French writers...."

"Ah, yes! That is to say, about the Russian writers,--" she corrected him, calming down,--"you ask, why the Russians write worse than they,--that is dear enough! because they do not invent anything interesting. The French writers have real heroes, who do not talk like everybody else, and who behave differently. They are always brave, in love, jolly ... but with us, the heroes are simple little men, without daring, without fiery feelings,--ugly, pitiful little creatures--the most real sort of men, and nothing more! Why are they heroes? You will never understand that in a Russian book. The Russian hero is a stupid, sluggish sort of fellow, he's always disgusted with something, he's always thinking of something incomprehensible, and he pities everybody, and he himself is pitiful, ve-ery pi-tiful indeed! He meditates, and talks and then he goes to make a declaration of love, and then he meditates again until he gets married ... and when he is married, he says sour nonsense to his wife, and abandons her.... What is there interesting in that? It even angers me, because it resembles a deception--instead of a hero, there is always some sort of a stuffed scarecrow stuck up in a romance! And never, while you are reading a Russian book, can you forget real life,--is that nice? But when you read the works of a Frenchman--you shudder for the heroes, you pity them, you hate, you want to fight when they fight, you weep when they perish ... you wait for the end of the romance with passionate interest, and when you read it--you almost cry with vexation, because that is all. You live--but in Russian books, it is utterly incomprehensible why men live. Why write books, if you cannot narrate anything unusual? Really, it is strange!"

"There is a great deal which might be said in reply to you, Varvára Vasílievna,--" he stemmed the stormy tide of her speech.

"Well then, reply!--" she burst out, with a smile.--"Of course, you will rout me!"

"I shall try. First of all, what Russian authors have you read?"

"Various ... but they are all alike. Take Saliás, for example ... he imitates the French, but badly. However, he has Russian heroes also, and can one write anything interesting about them? And I have read a great many others--Mórdovtzeff, Márkevitch, Pazúkhin, I think--you see, even from their names it is plain that they cannot write well! You haven't read them? But have you read Fortuné de Boisgobey? Ponson du Terrail? Arsène Houssaye? Pierre Zaconné? Dumas, Gaboriau, Borne? How fine, good heavens! Wait ... do you know what pleases me most in romances is the villains, those who so artfully weave various spiteful plots, who murder and poison,... they're clever, strong ... and when, at last, they are caught,--rage seizes upon me, and I even go so far as to cry. Everybody hates the villain, everybody is against him--he is alone against them all! That's--a hero! And those others, the virtuous people, become disgusting, when they win.... And, in general, do you know, people please me so long as they strongly desire something, march forward somewhere, seek something, torment themselves ... but if they have reached their goal, and have come to a halt, then they are no longer interesting ... they are even insipid!"

Excited, and, probably, proud of what she had said to him, she walked slowly by his side, raising her head prettily, and flashing her eyes.

He looked into her face, and nervously twisting his head, he sought for a retort which should, at one stroke, tear from her mind that coarse veil of dust which enveloped it. But, while feeling himself bound to reply to her, he wished to listen longer to her ingenuous and original chatter, to behold her again carried away with her opinions, and sincerely laying bare her soul before him. He had never heard such speeches; they were hideous and impossible in his eyes, but, at the same time, everything she had said harmonized, to perfection, with her rather rapacious beauty. Before him was an unpolished mind, which offended him by its roughness, and a woman who was seductively beautiful, who irritated his sensuality. These two forces crushed him down with all the energy of their directness, and he must set up something in opposition to them, otherwise, he felt--they might drive him out of the wonted ruts of those views and moods, with which he had dwelt in peace until he met her. He possessed a clear sense of logic, and he had argued well with persons of his own circle. But how was he to talk with her, and what ought he say to her, in order to urge her mind into the right road, and ennoble her soul, which had been deformed by stupid novels, and the society of the peasants, and of that soldier, her drunken father?

"Ugh, how foolishly I have been talking!--" she exclaimed, with a sigh.--"I have bored you, haven't I?"

"No, but...."

"You see, I'm very glad to know you. Until you came, I had no one to talk with. Your sister does not like me, and is always angry with me ... it must be became I give my father vódka, and because I thrashed Nikon...."

"You?! You thrashed him? Eh.. how did you do that?"--said Ippolít Sergyéevitch, in amazement.

"Very simply, I lashed him with papa's kazák whip, that's all! You know, they were threshing the grain, there was an awful hurry, and he, the beast, was drunk! Wasn't I angry! How dared he get drunk when the work was seething, and his eyes were needed in every direction? Those peasants, they...."

"But, listen, Varvára Vasílievna,--" he began, impressively and as gently as possible,--"is it nice to beat a servant? Is that noble? Reflect! Did those heroes, whom you adore, beat their admirers?... Sadi-Coco...."

"Oh, indeed they did! One day, Count Louis gave Coco such a box on the ear, that I even felt sorry for the poor little soldier. And what can I do with them, except beat them? It's a good thing I am able to do it ... for I am strong! Feel what muscles I've got!"

Bending her arm at the elbow, she proudly offered it to him. He laid his hand on her arm above her elbow, and pressed it hard with his fingers, but immediately recollected himself, and in confusion, blushing crimson, he looked around him. Everywhere the trees stood in silence, and only....

In general, he was not modest with women, but this woman, by her simplicity and trustfulness made him so, although she kindled in him a feeling which was perilous to him.