Chapter V: Part 5

In the drawing-room a chandelier hung above the sofa and round table near the piano; it had not been lighted for many years, indeed not since the last Christmas before the Revolution. Now once again it was illumined, and the dull yellow flare of its candles--dimly shining out of their dust-laden pendants--lit up the near side of the room and its contents; at the further side, however, where doors led into the hall and a sittingroom, there was a complete wreckage. The chairs, armchairs, and couches had vanished through the agency of unknown hands, leaving only fragments of broken furniture, and odds and ends of utensils heaped together in casual profusion in a dark corner, only penetrated by grey, ghostlike shadows. The curtains were closely drawn; outside the rain pattered drearily on the windows.

Lydia Constantinovna played a long while on the piano, at first a bravura from the operas, then some classical pieces, Liszt's "Twelfth Rhapsody," and finally ended with the artless music of Oppel's "A Summer's Night in Berezovka"--a piece she used to play to Ivanov when she was his fiancée.

She played it through twice; then broke off abruptly, rising from her seat and shaking with gusts of malicious laughter. Still laughing loudly and evilly, she began to sip brandy out of a high narrow glass.

Her eyes were still beautiful, with the beauty of lakes in autumn when the trees are shedding their leaves. She seated herself on the sofa, and lay back among its cushions, her hands clasped behind her head, in an attitude of utter abandonment. Her legs in their open- work stockings were plainly visible under her black silk skirt, and she crossed them, leisurely placing her feet, encased in their patent leather shoes, upon a low footstool.

She drank a great deal of brandy in slow sips, and as she pressed her beautiful lips to the glass she vilified everybody and everything-- Ivanov, the Revolution, Moscow, the Crimea, Marin-Brod, Mintz, and herself.

Then she became silent, her eyes grew dull, she began to speak quietly and sadly, with a foolish helpless smile.

Mintz was drinking and pacing up and down the room, speaking volubly with noisy derision. The brandy flowed through his veins, warming his sluggish blood; his thoughts grew vivid and spiteful, engendering sarcastic, malicious remarks. Whenever he took a drink, he removed his pince-nez for a moment, and his eyes became evil, vacant and bemused.

Lydia Constantinovna sat in the corner of the sofa, covered her shoulders with a plaid shawl, and crossed her legs in the Turkish fashion.

"What a smell of chipre there is, Mintz," she murmured in a low voice. "I think I must be tipsy. Yes, I must be. When I drink a great deal I always begin to think there are too many perfumes about. They suffocate me, I get their taste in my mouth, they sing in my ears and I feel ill.... What a smell of chipre ... it is my favourite perfume: do you smell it?"

She looked at Mintz with a half dazed stare, then continued:

"In an hour's time I shall be having hysterics. It is always the way when I drink too much. I don't feel cheerful any longer, I feel melancholy now, Mintz. I feel now as though ... as though I have wept on this sofa all through the night ... Oh, how happy we used to be once upon a time," she sighed tearfully, then added with a giggle. "Why I hardly know what I am saying!"

Mintz was walking up and down the room, measuring his steps extremely carefully. He halted in front of Lydia Constantinovna, removed his glasses and scowled:

"But I, when I drink, I begin to see things with extraordinary clearness: I see that we are melancholy because the devil only knows why or for what we are living; I see that life is impossible without faith; that our hearts and minds are exhausted with the endless discussions in cafes, attics and promenades. I realise that no matter what happens, villainy will always exist. I see, too, that we have been drinking because we feel lonely and dull--yes, even though we have been joking and laughing boisterously; I see that there is now the great joy and beauty of spring outside--so different from the distorted images visible to warped minds and clouded eyes; I see, moreover, that the Revolution has passed us by after throwing us aside, even though the New Economic Policy may put on us our feet again for a while, and that ... that ..." Mintz did not finish, but turned round abruptly and strode away with an air of self-assertion, into the remote end of the room, where the debris was littered.

"Yes, that is true ... you are right," answered Lydia Constantinovna. "But then I do not love Sergius, I never have done."

"Of course I am right," Mintz retorted severely from his dim corner. "People never love others. They love themselves--through others."

Ivanov came in from the hall in his cap and muddy boots, carrying his rifle. Without a single word he passed through the room and went into his study. Mintz watched him in severe silence, then followed him. Inside he leaned against the door-post with a wry smile:

"You are shunning me all this time. Why?"

"You imagine it," returned Ivanov.

He lighted a candle on his desk, took off his coat, changed his boots and clothes, hung up his rifle.

"That is ridiculous!" Mintz replied coldly. "I very seldom imagine things. I want to say how very comfortable you seem here, because this is the very essence of comfort.... Look at me! I have painted pictures, sold them, painted more in order to sell those also--though I ceased painting long ago--and I lived in garrets because I must have light, and by myself because my wife will not come to such a place.... True, she is no longer with me, she deserted me long ago! Now I have only mistresses.... And I envy you because ... because it is very cold in garrets.... You understand me?"

Mintz took off his pince-nez and his eyes looked bewildered and malignant: "In the name of all who had been tortured, all who have exchanged the springtime beauty of the parks for the erotic atmosphere of boudoirs; all who in the soft luxury of their homes forgot, and have now lost their claim on Russia--I say you are supremely comfortable, and we envy you! One may work here, one may even ... marry ... You have never painted, have you?"

"No."

Mintz was silent, then suddenly said in a low tone: "Look here! We have some brandy. Shall we have a drink?"

"No, thank you. I want to sleep. Good night."

"I want to talk!"

Ivanov extinguished the candle, through custom finding his bread and milk in the dark, and hastily consumed it without sitting down. Mintz stood a moment by the door; then went out, slamming it behind him.

Lydia Constantinovna now had her feet on the carpet and her head was bowed. Her eyes under their long lashes were blank and limpid, like lakes amid reeds. Her hands were clasped round her knees.

"How was Sergius?" she enquired, without raising her head.

"Boorish, he has gone to bed," answered Mintz.

He was about to sit beside her, but she rose, arranged her hair mechanically, and smiled faintly and tenderly--not at Mintz, but into the empty space.

"To bed? Well, it is time. Good rest!" she said softly. "Ah, how the perfume torments me. I feel giddy."

She went to the other end of the room, Mintz following her, and halted on the threshold. In the stillness of the night the pattering rain could be heard distinctly. Lydia Constantinovna leaned against the white door, throwing back her head, and began to speak; avoiding Mintz's eyes, she endeavoured to express herself simply and clearly, but the words seemed dry as they fell from her lips:

"I am very tired, Mintz, I am going to bed at once. You go too. Goodbye until tomorrow. We shall not meet again to-night. Do you understand, Mintz? It is my wish."

Mintz stood still, his legs wide apart, his arms akimbo, his head hanging. Then with a sad, submissive smile he answered in an unexpectedly mild tone: "Very well, then, All right, I understand you. It is quite all right."

Lydia Constantinovna stretched out her hand, speaking in the unaffected, friendly way she had desired earlier: "I know you are a malicious, bored, lonely cynic, like ... like an old homeless dog ... But you are kind and intelligent.... You know I will never leave you-- we are so.... But now I am going in to him ... just for the last time."

Mintz kissed her hand without speaking, then his tall, bony, somewhat stooping figure disappeared down the corridor.

V

Lydia Constantinovna's bedroom was cold and gloomy. As formerly, it contained a huge four-poster, a chest of drawers, a dressing table and a wardrobe. The rain beat fiercely against the window panes running down in tiny glass globules.

Lydia lighted two candles, and placed them beside the tarnished mirror. Some toilette belongings, relics of her childhood, lay on the chest-of-drawers, and the contents of the baggage she had brought with her the previous day were scattered about the room. The candles burnt dimly, their yellow tongues flickering unsteadily over the tarnished mirror.

She changed her garments and put on a loose green neglige, then re- arranged her hair into plaits, forming them into a coronet which made her head appear very small and graceful.

From force of habit she opened a bottle of perfume, moistened the palms of her hands and rubbed them over her neck and bosom. At once she felt giddy, even the cold, dampish sheets on her bed seemed to smell of chipre.

Lydia sat down on the edge of her bed in her green negligé, listening to the sounds around her. Outside, there was a continuous howling and barking of dogs, now and then she could distinguish the croaking of half-awakened crows in the park.

The clock struck eleven, then half-past, someone passed along the corridor, Aganka cleared up in the dining-room, Mintz walked to and fro in the drawing-room, then all became quiet.

Lydia Constantinovna went to the window and gazed out for a long time. Then, quietly, she left her bedroom and crept down to Ivanov's study. All around her it was dark, cold and silent as she passed through the empty, spacious rooms. A forgotten candle still burnt wanly in the drawing-room, and a rat ran out from under the table.

She was again plunged in darkness when she entered Ivanov's study, and she was greeted by a smell of horse trappings and joiners' glue.

Ivanov was asleep on the sofa. He lay on his back, his arms extended; the outlines of his body could just be discerned. Lydia sat down quietly beside him and laid her hand on his breast. Ivanov sighed, drew in his arms and raised his head quickly from the pillow:

"Who is there?"

"It is I, Sergius--me--Lida," answered Lydia Constantinovna in a rapid whisper. "I know you do not wish to speak to me. I am bored ... I returned here in a happy mood, not even thinking of you, and now all at once I feel wretched.... Oh, those perfumes! How they torment me...." She passed her hand over her face, then was silent. Ivanov sat up.

"What is the matter Lida? What do you want?" he asked drowsily, and he lighted a cigarette. The light shone on them as they sat half- dressed on the sofa. Ivanov had a rugged, lumbering look.

"What do I want?" Lydia Constantinovna murmured. "Age creeps on me, Sergius, and a lonely old age is terrible ... I feel so weary.... I came here happy enough, now I am miserable. I can think of nothing but the time you and I spent here together ... I am always playing" A Summer's Night in Berezovka "--do you remember? I used to play it to you in those days.... Well, so there you see.... Age creeps on and I am longing for a home.... To-day they had the Twelfth Gospel Service.... Surely we still have a word for each other?" Her face clouded in sudden doubt. "You have been with Arina then?" she questioned sharply.

Ivanov did not answer immediately.

"I have grieved and worried greatly, Lida," he said at last, "but that does not matter. These four years I have lived alone, and have placed the past behind me. It is gone for ever. These four years I have struggled against death, and struggled for my daily bread. You know nothing of all this, we are as strangers.... Yes, I have been with Arina. Soon I shall have a son. I do not know if I am broken or merely tired, but for the moment I feel all right. I am going to bring Arina here, she will be my wife and keep house for me. And I shall live.... I am keeping step with some elemental Force . . . I shall have a son.... It will be a totally different life for me, Lida."

"And for me Moscow--as ever--wine, theatres, cafes, Mintz, an eternal hurly-burly ... I am sick of it!"

"I cannot help you, Lida. I too am sick of all that, but now I am at peace. We must all work out our own salvation."

Ivanov spoke very quietly and simply. Lydia Constantinovna sat bowed and motionless, as if fearing to move, clasping her knees with both hands. When Ivanov ceased speaking she rose noiselessly and went towards the door. She stood on the threshold a brief moment then, went out. The candle still burnt fitfully in the drawing-room. The house was wrapt in silence.

THE BIELOKONSKY ESTATE

Ivan Koloturov, President of the Bielokonsky Committee of the Poor, had ploughed his tiny holding for twenty years. He always rose before dawn and worked--dug, harrowed, threshed, planed, repaired--with his huge, strong, pock-marked hands; he could only use his muscular strength.

On rising in the morning, he prepared his hash of potatoes and bread, and went out of the hut to work--on the land, with cattle, with wood, stone and iron. He was honest, careful, and laborious. While still a lad of five he had, while driving from the station, helped a stranger in a mechanic's overalls to a seat; the man had told him all were equal in the sight of God, that the land belonged to the peasants, that the proprieters had stolen it from them, and that a time would come when he would have to "do things."

Ivan Koloturov did not understand what he would have to do, but when the fierce wave of the Revolution broke over the country and swept into the Steppe, he was the first to rise to "do things." Now he felt disillusioned. He had wanted to do everything honestly, but he was only able to work with his hands and muscles.

They elected him to the County Committee. He was accustomed to rise before dawn and set to work immediately. Now he was not permitted to do anything before ten o'clock. At ten he went to the Committee where, with the greatest difficulty, he put his name to papers--but this was not work: papers came in and went out independently of him. He did not understand their purport, he only signed them.

He wanted to do something! In the spring he went home to the plough. He had been elected in the Autumn, President of the Committee of the Poor, and he established himself in Prince Prozorovsky's domain, putting on his soldier brother's great coat and carrying a revolver in his belt.

He went home in the evening. His wife met him sullenly, jerking her elbows as she prepared some mash. The children were sitting on the stove, some little pigs grunted in a corner. There was a strong smell of burning wood.

"You won't care to eat with us now after the Barin's meal," nagged the old woman. "You are a Barin yourself now. Ha, ha!"

Ivan remained silent, sitting down on a bench beneath the Ikon.

"So you mix with rascals now," she persisted, "yes, that is what they are, Ivan Koloturov. Discontented rascals!"

"Peace, fool! You don't understand. Be quiet, I say!"

"You are ashamed of me, so you are hiding."

"We will live there together--soon."

"Not I! I will not go there."

"Idiot!"

"Ah, you have already learnt to snarl," the old woman jibed. "Ate your mash then! But perhaps you don't relish it after your Barin's pork."

She was right, he had already eaten--pork, and she had guessed it. Ivan began to puff. "You are an idiot, I tell you," he growled.

He had come home to have a business talk about their affairs, but he left without settling anything. The old woman's sharp tongue had stung him in a tender spot. It was true that all the respectable peasants had stood aside, and only those who had nothing to lose had joined the Committee.

Ivan passed through the village. As he walked across the park, he saw a light burning in the stables and went over to discover the reason. He found some lads had assembled there and were playing cards and smoking. He watched them awhile, frowningly.

"This is stupid! You will set the place alight," he grumbled.

"What if we do?" the men answered sulkily. "It is for you to defend other people's property?"

"Not other peoples'--ours!" he retorted, then turned away.

"Ivan!" they shouted after him; "have you the wine-cellar key? There are spirits in there--if you don't give it to us, we shall break in...."

The house was dark and silent. The huge, spacious apartments seemed strange, terrible. The Prince still occupied the drawing-room. Ivan entered his office--formerly the dining-room--and lighted a lamp. He went down on his knees and began to pick up the clods of earth that lay on the floor; he threw them out of the window, then fetched a brush and swept up. He could not understand why gentlemen's boots did not leave a trail of dirt behind them.

Then he went into the drawing-room and served the final notice on the Prince while the men were accommodating themselves in the kitchen. Then he joined them, lying down on a form without undressing. After a long time he fell asleep.

He awoke the next morning while all were still sleeping, rose and walked round the manor. The lads were still playing cards in the stable.

"Why aren't you asleep?" one of them asked him.

"I have had all I want," he replied. He called the cow-herd. The man came out, stood still, scratched his head, and swore angrily-- indignant at being aroused.

"Don't meddle in other people's affairs," he grunted. "I know when to wake."

The dawn was fine, clear and chilly. A light appeared in the drawing- room, and Ivan saw the Prince go out, cross the terrace and depart into the Steppe.

At ten o'clock, the President entered the office, and set about what was, in his opinion, a torturous, useless business--the making out an inventory of the wheat and rye in each peasant's possession. It was useless because he knew, as did everyone in the village, how much each man had; it was torturous because it entailed such a great deal of writing.

Prince Prozorovsky had risen at daybreak. The sun glared fiercely over the bare autumn-swept park and into the drawing-room windows. The wedding cry of the ravens echoed through the autumnal stillness that hung broodingly over the Steppe.

On such a dazzling golden day as this, the Prince's ancestors had set off with their blood-hounds in by-gone days. In this house a whole generation had lived--now the old family was forced to leave it--for ever!

A red notice--"The Bielokonsky Committee of the Poor"--had been affixed to the front door the previous evening, and the intruders had bustled all night arranging something in the hall. The drawing-room had not so far been touched; the gilt backs of books still glittered from behind glass cases in the study. Oh books! Will not your poison and your delights still abide?

Prince Prozorovsky went out into the fields; they were barren but for dead rye-stalks that stuck up starkly from the earth. Wolves were already on the trail. He wandered all day long, drank the last wine of autumn and listened to the ravens' wedding cries.

When he had beheld this bird's carnival as a child, he had clapped his hands, crying: "Hurrah for my wedding! Hurrah for my wedding!" He had never had a wedding. Now his days were numbered. He had lived for love. He had known many affections, had felt bitter pangs. He had tasted the poison of the Moscow streets, of books and of women; had been touched by the autumnal sadness of Bielokonsky, where he always stayed in the autumn. Now he knew grief!

He walked aimlessly through the trackless fields and down into hollows; the aspens glowed in a purple hue around him; on a hill behind him the old white house stood amid the lilac shrubbery of a decaying park. The crystal clear, vast, blue vista was immeasurably distant.

The hair on his temples was already growing thin and gray--there was no stopping, no returning!

He met a peasant, a rough, plain man in a sheep-skin jacket, driving a cart laden with sacks. The man took off his cap and stopped his horse, to make way for the ... _gentleman_.

"Good morning, little Father," he wheezed, then addressed his beast, pulled the reins, drove on, then stopped again and called out:

"Listen, Barin, I want to tell you...."

The Prince turned round and looked at the man. The peasant was old, his face was covered with hair and wrinkles.

"What will your Excellency do now?"

"That is difficult to say," replied the Prince.

"When will you go?" the old man asked. "Those Committees of the Poor are taking away the corn. There are no matches, no manufacturers, and I am burning splinters for light.... They say no corn is to be sold.... Listen, Barin, I will take some secretly to the station. People are coming from Moscow ... and ... and ... about thirty five of them ... thirty five I tell you!... But then, what will there be to buy with the proceeds?... Well, well! It is a great time all the same ... a great time, Barin! Have a smoke, your Excellency."

Prozorovsky refused the proffered pipe, and rolled himself a small cigar of an inferior brand. Around was the Steppe. No one saw, no one knew of the peasant's compassion. The prince shook hands with him, turned sharply on his heel and went home.

The cold, clear, glassy water in the park lake was blue and limpid, for it was still too early for it to freeze all over. The sun was now sinking towards the west in an ocean of ruddy gold and amethyst.

Prince Prozorovsky entered his study, sat down at the desk and drew out a drawer full of letters. No! he could not take all his life away with him: He laid the drawer on the desk, then went into the drawing- room. A jug of milk and some bread stood on an album-table. The Prince lighted the fire, burnt some papers, and stood by the mantelpiece drinking his milk and eating the bread, for he had grown hungry during the day.... The milk was sour, the bread stale.

Already the room was filling with the dim shadows of evening, a purplish mist hung outside; the fire burnt with a bright yellow flame.

Heavy footsteps echoed through the silence of the corridor, and Ivan Koloturov appeared in the doorway. Koloturov! As young lads they had played together, Ivan had developed into a sober, sensible, thrifty, and industrious peasant. Standing in the middle of the room, the President silently handed the Prince his paper--it had taken him a whole hour to type it out.

On the sheet was typed "To the Barin Prozorovsky. The Bielokonsky Committee of the Poor order you to withdraw from the Soviet Estate of Bielokonsky and from the district precincts. President Koloturov."

"Very well," said the Prince quietly; "I will go this evening."

"You will take no horse."

"I will go on foot."

"As you like," Koloturov replied. "You will take nothing with you." He turned round, stood a moment with his back to the Prince, then went out of the room.

At that instant, a clock struck three quarters of the hour. It was the work of Kuvaldin, the eighteenth century master. It had been in the Moscow Kremlin and had afterwards travelled through the Caucasus with the Vadkovsky Princes. How many times had its ticking sounded during the course of those centuries.

Prozorovsky sat down by the window and looked out at the neglected park. He remained there for about an hour, leaning his arms on the marble sill, thinking, remembering. His reflections were interrupted by Koloturov. The peasant came in silently with two of his men and passed through into the office. They endeavoured silently to lift a writing-table. Something cracked.

The Prince rose and put on his big grey overcoat, a felt hat, and went out. He walked through the rustling gold-green foliage of the park, passed close by some stables and a distillery, descended into a dell, came up on its opposite side. Then, feeling tired, he decided to walk slowly--walk twenty miles on foot for the first time in his life. After all, how simple the whole thing was ... it was only terrible in its simplicity.

The sun had already sunk beneath the horizon. The last ravens had flown. An autumn hush over-hung the Steppe. He walked on briskly through the wide, windy, open space, walking for the first time he knew not whither, nor wherefore. He carried nothing, he possessed nothing. The night was silent, dark, autumnal, and frosty.

He walked on briskly for eight miles, heedless of everything around, then he stopped a moment to tie his shoe lace. Suddenly he felt an overwhelming weariness and his legs began to ache; he had covered nearly forty miles during the day.

In front of him lay the village of Makhmytka; he had often ridden there in his youth on secret visits to a soldier's wife; but now he would not go to her; no, not for anything in the world! The village lay pressed to the earth and was ornamented with numerous stacks which smelt of straw and dung. On its outskirts the Prince was met by a pack of baying dogs, who flitted over the ground like dark, ghostly shadows as they leapt round him.

At the first cabin he tapped at the little window, dimly lighted within by some smouldering splinters.

"Who is there?" came the tardy response.

"Let me in for the night, good people," called the Prince.

"Who is it?"

"A traveller."

"Well, just a minute," came the grudging answer.

A bare-footed peasant in red drawers came out holding a lighted splinter over his head and looking round.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, "it is you, Prince! So you were too wise to stay, were you? Well, come in."

An immense quantity of straw was spread over the floor. A cricket was chirruping, and there was a smell of soot and dung.

"Lay yourself down, Barin, and God bless you!"

The peasant climbed on to the stove and sighed. His old wife began to mutter something, the man grumbled, then said to the Prince:

"Barin, you can have your sleep, only get up in the morning and leave before daylight, so that none will see you. You know yourself these are troubled times, there is no gainsaying it. You are a gentleman, Barin, and gentlemen have got to be done away with. The old woman will wake you.... Sleep now."

Prozorovsky lay down without undressing, put his cape under his head-- and at once caught a cockroach on his neck! Some young pigs grunted in a corner. The hut was swarming with vermin, blackened by smoke and filled with stenches. Here, where men, calves and pigs herded all together, the Prince lay on his straw, tossing about and scratching. He thought of how, some centuries hence, people would be writing of this age with love, compassion, and tenderness. It would be thought of as an epoch of the most sublime and beautiful manifestation of the human spirit.

A little pig came up, sniffed all round him, then trotted away again. A low, bright star peeped in through the window. How infinite the world seemed!

He did not notice when he fell asleep. The old woman woke him at daybreak and led him through the backyard. The dawn was bright and cold, and the grass was covered with a light frost. He walked along briskly, swinging his stick, the collar of his overcoat turned up. The sky was marvellously deep and blue.

At the station the Prince squeezed himself into a warm place on the train, amongst other passengers carrying little sacks and bags of flour. Thus, pressed against the sides of a truck, his clothes bedaubed with white flour, he journeyed off to--Moscow.

Prince Prozorovsky had left at evening. Immediately after, furniture was pulled about and re-arranged, the veneer was chipped off the desk. The clock was about to be transferred to the office, but some one noticed that it had only one hand. None of the men realised that Kuvaldin's old clocks were necessarily one-handed, and moved every five minutes simply because the minutes were not counted singly in those days. Somebody suggested that the clock could be removed from its case.

"Take the clock out of the box," Ivan Koloturov ordered. "Tell the joiners to put some shelves in it, it will do as a cupboard for the office.... Now then, don't stamp, don't stamp!"

That night an old woman came running in. There was a great turmoil in the village: a girl had been abused--no one knew by whom, whether by the villagers themselves or the people who had come from Moscow for flour; the old woman began to accuse the Committee men. She stood by the window and reviled them at the top of her voice. Ivan Koloturov drove her away with a blow on the neck, and she went off wailing bitterly.

It was pitch-dark. The house was quiet. Milkmaids outside were singing boisterously. Ivan went into the study, sat down on the sofa, felt its softness, found a forgotten electric lamp and played with it, flashing its light on the walls as he passed through. He noticed the clock on the floor of the drawing-room and began to think what he would do with it, then he picked it up and threw it into the water- closet. A band of his men had broken their way into the other end of the house, and some one was thumping on the piano; Ivan Koloturov would have liked to have driven them away, to prevent them from doing damage, but he dared not. He suddenly felt sorry for himself and his old wife and he wanted to go home to his stove.

A bell clanged--supper! Ivan quietly stole to the wine-cellar, filled up his jug, and drank, then hurriedly locked the cellar door.

On the way home he fell down in the park; he lay there a long time, trying to lift himself, wanting all the while to say something and to explain--but he fell asleep.

The dark, dismal autumn night enfolded the empty, frozen, desolate Steppe.

DEATH

I

It seemed as though the golden days of "St. Martin's" summer had come to stay.

The sun shone without warmth in the vast blue expanse of sky, across which swept the gabbling cranes on their annual flight southward. A hoar-frost lay in the shadow of the houses. The air was crisp and sapphire, the cold invigorating, a brooding stillness wrapped the world.

The vine-wreathed columns on the terrace, the maple avenue and the ground beneath, all glowed under a purple pall of fallen leaves. The lake shone blue and smooth as a mirror, reflecting in its shining surface the white landing-stage and its boat, the swans and the statues. The fruit was already plucked in the garden and the leaves were falling. What a foolish wanton waste this stripping of the trees after summer seemed!

In days such as these, the mind grows at once alert and calm. It dwells peacefully on the past and the future. The individual feels impelled by a kind of langour just to walk over the fallen leaves, to look in the gardens for unnoticed, forgotten apples, and to listen to the cries of the cranes flying south.

II

Ippolyte Ippolytovich was a hundred years old less three months and some days. He had been a student in the Moscow University with Lermontov, and they had been drawn together in friendship through their mutual admiration of Byron. In the "sixties,"--he was then close to his fiftieth birthday--he constantly conferred with the Emperor Alexander on liberative reforms, and pored over Pisarev's writings in his own home.

It was only by the huge, skeleton frame over which stretched the parchment skin, that it could be seen he had once been a tall, big, broad-shouldered man; his large face was covered with yellowish-white hair that crept from the nose, the cheek-bones, the forehead and the ears, while the skull was completely bald; the eyes were white and discoloured; the hands and legs shrunken, and seemed as though emaciated by nature's own design.

There was a smell of wax in his room, and that peculiar fusty odour that pervades every old nobleman's home. It was a large, bare apartment containing only a massive mahogany writing-table, covered with a faded green cloth and bestrewn with a quantity of old- fashioned ornaments; there was also an armchair and a sofa.

The moulded ceiling, the greenish-white marbled walls, the dragon fire-place, the inlaid flooring of speckled birch, the window panes, rounded at the tops, curtainless and with frequent intersecting of their framework, all, had become tarnished and lustreless, covered over with all the colours of the rainbow. Through the windows streamed the mellow golden rays of the autumn sun, resting on the table, a part of the sofa, and on the floor.

For many years the old man had ceased to sleep at night so as to sit up by day. It might truly be said that he slept almost the entire twenty-four hours, and also that he sat up during the whole of that time! He was always slumbering, lying with half-open, discoloured eyes on a large sofa tapestried in pig-skin of English make, and covered with a bear-skin rug. He lay there day and night, his right arm flung back behind his head. Whenever, by day or night, he was called by his name--Ippolyte Ippolytovich, he would remain silent a moment collecting his wits, then answer:

"Eh?"

He had no thoughts. All that took place round him, all that he had gone through in life, was meaningless to him now. It was all outlived, and he had nothing to think about. Neither had he any feelings, for all his organs of receptivity had grown dulled.

At night mice could be heard; while through the empty, columned hall out of which his room opened, rats scurried, flopping about and tumbling down from the armchairs and tables. But the old man did not hear them.

III

Vasilisa Vasena came every morning at seven o'clock; she was a country-woman of about thirty seven, strong, healthy, red-faced, reminiscent of a July day in her floridness and vigorous health.

She used to say quietly: "Good morning to you, Ippolyte Ippolytovich."

And he would give a base "Eh?" in a voice like a worn-out gramophone record.

Vasena promptly began washing him with a sponge, then fed him with manna-gruel. The old man sat bent up on the sofa, his hands resting on his knees. He ate slowly from a spoon. They were silent, his eyes gazing inwardly, seeing nothing. Sunbeams stole in through the window and glistened on his yellowish hair.

"Your good son, Ilya Ippolytovich, has come," Vasena said.

"Eh?"

Ippolyte Ippolytovich had married at about the age of forty; of his three sons only Ilya was living. The old man called his son to memory, pictured him in his mind, but felt neither joy nor interest-- felt nothing!

Dimly, somewhere far away in the dark recesses of his memory, lurked a glimmering, wavering image of his son; at first he saw him as an infant, then as a boy, finally a youth. He recollected that now already he too was almost an old man. It came to him that once, long ago, this image was necessary and very dear to him, that afterwards he had lost sight of it, and that now it had become meaningless to him.

Dully, through inertia, the old man inquired: "He has come, you say?"

"Yes, came in the night, alone. He is resting now."

"Eh? He has come to have a look at me before I die."

Vasena promptly answered: "Lord! you are not so young as to...."

They were silent. The old man lay back on the sofa and slept.

"Ippolyte Ippolytovich, you must take your walk!"

"Eh?"

It was a "St. Martin's Summer." Over the scattered blood-red vine leaves on the terrace, which was deluged in mellow autumnal sunshine, the bent-up old man walked, leaning heavily on a bamboo cane, and supported by the sturdy Vasena. He had a skull-cap pulled down low over his forehead, and wore a long, black overcoat.

IV

Sometimes the old man relapsed into a state of coma, lasting several hours. Then life seemed to have ebbed from him entirely. A clay-like pallor over-spread his face, he had the lips and open, glassy eyes of a corpse, and he scarcely breathed. Then they sent post-haste for the doctor, who sprinkled him with camphor, gave him oxygen and produced artificial respiration. The old man slowly came to, rolling his eyes.

"Another minute and it would have been death," the doctor would say in a deep, grave voice.

When the old man had at length recovered, Vasena used to say to him: "Lord! We were so frightened, we were so frightened! ... We thought you were quite gone. Yes, we did. For you know, you are not so young as to...."

Ippolyte Ippolytovich was silent and indifferent, only at moments, half-closing and screwing up his eyes, and straightening out his lips, he laughed:

"He-he! He-he!" Then added, slyly: "I am dying, you say? He-he! He- he!"

V

Ilya Ippolytovich walked through the empty rooms of the dying house. How dusty and mouldy it seemed! The sun came through the tarnished window-panes and the specks of dust looked golden in its radiant light. He entered the room where he had passed his childhood. Dust lay everywhere, on the window-sills, on the floor, and on the furniture. Here and there fresh boot-prints were visible. A thin portmanteau--not belonging to the house and pasted over with many labels--lay on a table. A hard, icy stillness pervaded the entire place.

Ilya Ippolytovich was stout like his father, but he still walked erect. His hair was already thinning and growing grey over the temples, but his face was clean-shaven, like a youth's. His lips were wrinkled and he had large, grey, weary eyes.

He felt gloomy and unhappy, because his father's days were numbered; and he brooded miserably over the awkwardness of approaching death, wondering how one should behave towards a man who was definitely doomed. To and fro, from corner to corner, he walked, with restless, springy steps.

He met his father on the terrace.

"Hallo, father!" he said briskly, with an intentional show of carelessness.

The old man looked at him blindly, not recognising his son at first. But afterwards he smiled, went up the steps, and gave his cheek to be kissed. It smelt of wax.

"Eh?" said the old man.

Ilya kissed him, laughed hilariously, and slapped him lightly on the shoulder: "It is a long time since we met, father. How are you?"

His father looked at him from beneath his cap, gave a feeble smile, then said after a pause: "Eh?"

Vasena answered for him: "You may well ask how he is doing, Ilya Ippolytovich! Why, we are fearing the worst every day."

Ilya threw her a reproachful glance and said loudly: "It is nonsense, father! You have still a hundred years to live! You are tired, let us sit down here and have a talk together."

They sat down on the marble steps of the terrace. Silence. No words came to Ilya. Try as he might, he could not think what to say.

"Well, I am still painting pictures," he tried at last; "I am preparing to go abroad."

The old man did not hear him; he looked at his son without seeing or understanding, plunged in his own reflections.

"You have come to look at me? You think I shall die soon?" he asked suddenly.

Ilya Ippolytovich grew very pale and muttered confusedly: "What are you saying, father? What do you mean?"

But his father no longer heard. He had fallen back in his chair, his eyes half-closed and glassy, his face utterly expressionless. He was asleep.

VI

The sun was shining, the sky was blue; in the limpid spaces above the earth there was a flood of crystal light.

Ilya Ippolytovich strolled through the park and thought of his father. The old man had lived a full, rich, and magnificent life. It had possessed so much that was good, bright and necessary. Now-- death! Nothing would remain. Nothing! And this nothing was terrible to Ilya Ippolytovitch.

Does not living man recognize life, the world, the sun, all that is around and within him, through himself? he reflected. A man dies, and the world dies for him. Thenceforward he feels and recognises nothing. Nothing! Then what is the use of living, developing, working, when in the end there will be--nothing?... Was there no great wisdom in his father's hundred years? Nor in his fatherhood?

A crane was crying somewhere overhead. The sound came from a scarcely visible dark arrow in the cloudless sky, which flew south. Red, frost-covered leaves were rustling underfoot. Ilya's face was pale, the wrinkles round his lips made him seem tired and feeble. He had spent his whole life alone, in the solitude of a cold studio, living arduously among pictures, for the sake of pictures. To what end?

VII

Ippolyte Ippolytovich sat in the large, bare dining-room eating chicken cutlets and broth. A napkin was tied round his neck as if he were a child. Vasena fed him from a tea-spoon, and afterwards led him into his study. The old man lay down on a sofa, put his hand behind his head and fell asleep, his eyes half-open.

Ilya went to him in the study. He again made a pretence of being cheerful, but his tired eyes betrayed grief, and behind his clean- shaven face, his grey English coat, and yellow boots, somehow one felt there was a great shaken and puzzled soul suffering, yet seeking to conceal its anguish.

He sat down at his father's feet.

For a long time the old man searched his face with his eyes, then in a scraping, worn-out piping voice, said: "Eh?"

"It is so long since we met, father, I am longing to have a chat with you! Somehow I have no one dearer to me than you! Absolutely no one! How are you, sir?"

The old man gazed before him with bleary eyes. He did not seem to have heard. But suddenly screwing up his eyes, straightening out his lips and opening his empty jaws, he laughed:

"He-he! he-he!" he laughed, and said jovially: "I am dying soon. He- he! he-he!"

However, Ilya no longer felt as embarrassed as on that first occasion on the terrace. In a hasty undertone, almost under his breath, he asked:

"But aren't you afraid?"

"No! He-he!"

"Don't you believe in God?"

"No! He-he!"

They were silent for a long time after that. Then the old man raised himself on his elbows with a sly grin.

"You see," he said, "when a man is worn out ... sleep is the best thing for him ... that is so with dying ... one wants to die.... Understand? When a man is worn out...."

He was silent for a moment, then grinned and repeated:

"He-he! He-he! Understand?"

Ilya gave his father a long look, standing there motionless, with wide-open eyes, feeling a thrill of utter horror.

But the old man was already slumbering.

VIII

Day faded. The blue autumnal twilight spread over the earth and peeped in through the windows. A purple mist filled the room with vague, spectral shadows. Outside was a white frost. A silvery moon triumphantly rode the clear cold over-arching sky.

Ippolyte Ippolytovich lay upon his sofa. He felt nothing. The space occupied by his body resembled only a great, dark, hollow bin in which there was--nothing! Close by, a rat flopped across the floor, but the old man did not hear. A teasing autumnal fly settled on his eyebrow, he did not wink. From the withered toes to the withered legs, to the hips, stomach, chest, and heart, passed a faint, agreeable, scarcely noticeable numbness.

It was evening now and the room was dark; the mist gathered thick and threatening through the windows. Outside in the crisp, frosty moonlight, it was bright. The old man's face--all over-grown with white hair--and his bald skull, had a death-like look.

Vasena entered in her calm yet vigorous manner. Her broad hips and deep bosom were only loosely covered by a red jacket.

"Ippolyte Ippolytovich, it is time for your meal," she called in a matter of fact tone.

But he did not reply, nor utter his usual "Eh?"

They sent at once for the doctor, who felt his pulse, pressed a glass to his lips, then said in a low, solemn tone:

"He is dead."

Vasena, standing by the door, and somewhat resembling a wild animal, answered calmly:

"Well he wasn't so young as to.... Haven't we all got to die! What is it to him now? He and his had everything in their day! Dear Lord, they had everything!"

IX

Low, downy cloudlets drifted over the sky in the early hours of the morning. Dark, lowering masses followed in their wake. The snow fell in large, cold, soft, feather-like flakes.

St. Martin's Summer was past, to be succeeded by the advent of another earthly joy--the first white covering of snow, when it is so delicious to follow the fresh footprints of the beasts, a rifle in hand.

THE HEIRS

I

Legend says that from the Sokolovaya Mountain--called the Mountain of Falcons, came Stenka Razin. It is written in books that from thence came also Emelian Pugachev.

The Sokolovaya Mountain towers high above the Volga and the plains, making a dark, precipitous descent to the pirate river below.

Across the Volga lies an ancient town. By the Glebychev Ravine, close to the old Cathedral guarded by one of Pugachev's guns, stands a mansion with a facade of ochre-coloured-columns. In olden days, when it was the residence of the princely Rastorovs' balls were held there, but decay had set in during the last twenty years, and Kseniya Davydovna--the mistress--old, ill, a spinster, was drawing to the end of her days.

She died in October, 1917, and now the tumbling, plundered house was occupied by--the heirs.

They had been scattered over the face of Russia, had spent their lives in Petersburg, Moscow and Paris; for twenty years the house had stood vacant and moribund. Then the Revolution came! The instinctive fury of the masses burst forth--and the remnants of the Rastorov family gathered in their old nest--to be hidden from the Revolution and famine.

Snow-storms--galloping snowy chargers--howled over the Steppe, the Volga, and the town. Elemental, all-devastating, as in the days of Stenka Razin--thundered the Revolution.

The rooms in the ancient mansion were damp, dark and chilly. The old cathedral could be seen from the window, and down below lay the Volga, seven miles wide, wrapt in a dazzling sheet of snow, its steamers moored to their wharves.

The family lived as a community at first, but their communism was nominal, for each barricaded and entrenched himself in his own room, with his own pot and samovar. They lived tedious, mean, malignant, worthless lives, execrating existence and the Revolution; they lived utterly apart from the turmoil that now replaced the placid even flow of the old regime: they were outside current events, and their thoughts for ever turned back to the past, awaiting its return.

General Kirill Lvovich awoke at seven o'clock. Everything was crowded closely together in the room, which was bedroom, drawing-room and dining-room combined. The blue dusk of morning was visible through the heavy blinds of the low window. The general put on his tasselled Bukhara dressing-gown and went outside, then returned coughing hoarsely.

"Anna," he snarled, "ask your kinsfolk which of them left the place in such a state. Don't they know we have no servants? It is your turn to set the samovar to-day. Are there no cigarette boxes?" he walked about the room, his hands behind his back, diamond rings glittering on his fingers.

"And it is your turn to go for the rations," retorted Anna Andreevna.

"That will do, I know it. There are four families living in the house and they cannot organise themselves so as to go in turn for the rations. Give me a sheet of paper and some ink."

The general sat down at the table and wrote out a notice:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we have no servants;
We must see to things ourselves. We can't
all perch like eagles, therefore,
I beg you to be more careful.
Kirill L. Lezhner."

Kirill Lvovich was not one of the heirs, it was his wife who came of the Rastorov family, and he had merely accompanied her to the ancestral mansion. Lvovich took his notice and hung it on the lavatory door. Then again he paced the floor, his jewels sparkling brilliantly.

"Why the devil do Sergius and his family occupy three rooms, and we only one?" he grumbled. "I shall leave this den. They don't behave like relatives! Are there no cigarettes?"

Anna Andreevna, a quiet, weary, feeble woman, replied tonelessly: "You know there are none. But I will look for some butt-ends in a moment. Lina sometimes throws away the unused cigarette wraps."

"What bourgeois they are--throwing away fag-ends and keeping servants!" her husband complained.

The dark twining corridor was strewn with rubbish, for no one had the will or wish to keep it neat. Anna Andreevna rummaged by the stove of Sergius Andreevich, Lina's husband, looking among the papers and sweepings. She peered into the stove and discovered that Leontyevna, the maid--a one-eyed Cyclop--had filled it with birch-wood, whereas it had been agreed that the rotting timber from the summer-house should be used as fuel first.

After enjoying a cigarette of his "own" tobacco, the general went out to the courtyard for firewood, returning with a bundle of sticks from the summer-house. The samovar was now ready and he sat down to his tea, leisurely drinking glass after glass, while Anna Andreevna heated her stove in the corridor.

A dim, wintry dawn was gradually breaking. The family of Sergius--the former head of a ministerial department--could be heard rousing themselves behind the wall.

"You have had sufficient albumen; take hydrates now," rose Lina's voice, calling to her children.

"Potatoes?"

"Yes."

"And fat?"

"You have had enough fat."

The general smiled craftily, then muttered grumpily:

"That is not eating, that is scientific alimentation." He cut himself a piece of bacon, ate it with some white bread, and drank more tea with sweet root and candied melon.

Gradually the occupants of the house roused themselves and half- dressed, sleepy--carrying their towels, empty samovars, and tooth brushes--they began to pass along the corridor in front of the general's open door.

Kirill Lvovich eyed them maliciously as he sat drinking his tea and inwardly cursed them all.

The Cyclop, Leontyevna, Sergius Andreevich's servant, tramped in heavily with her man's boots from the Labour Exchange; her solitary eye peered searchingly into Anna Andreevna's stove.

"I'll see she's not deceiving us over the firewood," she shouted aggressively: "Oh, what a store she's got!"

"But you have used the birch-wood," the general hit back from his room.

The Cyclop flew into a rage and slapped her thighs. One of the periodic scenes ensued.

"What?" Leontyevna cried, "I am not trusted, I am being spied on! Lina Fedorovna, I am going to complain to the Exchange."

Lina Fedorovna joined in from behind her door.

"She isn't trusted, she is being spied on," she echoed, "there must be spies in this house! And they call themselves intellectual people!"

"But you took the birch-wood!" protested Lvovich.

"And they call themselves intellectual!" screamed Lina.

The general came out into the passage and said severely:

"It is not for _us_ to judge, Lina Fedorovna. We are not the heirs here. But it seems strange to me that Sergius should occupy three rooms, and Anna only one--yes, very strange indeed."