Chapter V: Introduction (3)

Meanwhile the little woman, perfectly at home, approached Maxim, who was advancing toward her with his crutch and cane, and extending her hand, remarked with the most gracious condescension, “It is very good of you not to strike a blind boy. He has told me of it.”

“Indeed, my young lady!” exclaimed Maxim, with a comical affectation of gravity, clasping between his own broad palms the girl’s tiny hand. “How grateful I ought to be to my pupil that he won your good-will in my behalf!” And Maxim laughed, as he patted the hand he retained in his own. Meanwhile the girl stood looking at him with her clear, open gaze, which completely subjugated his woman-hating heart.

“Well, Annùsya,” said Maxim to his sister with a quizzical smile, “it seems that our Peter is beginning to choose his own friends. And you cannot deny, Annya, that he has made a good choice, even though he is blind. Has he not?”

“What do you mean, Max?” asked the young woman, gravely, as the color mounted to her cheeks.

“I was only joking,” replied the brother, briefly, perceiving that his sally had touched a sensitive chord, which responding revealed a hidden thought in the maternal heart.

Anna Michàilovna blushed still more deeply; she stooped hastily, and with a sudden passionate tenderness embraced the girl, who received this unexpected and impulsive caress with her usual serene though slightly surprised expression.

VI.

From that day the closest intimacy was established between the Popèlski mansion and the home of the Possessor. The girl, whose name was Evelyn, came every day to the mansion, and in a short time she too became Uncle Maxim’s pupil.

At first this plan of companionship in study did not meet with Pan Yaskùlski’s approval. In the first place he thought that a woman needed no more education than would enable her to keep a memorandum of the soiled linen, and an account of her own expenses; in the second place he was a good Catholic, and believed that Maxim had committed a sin in fighting the Austrians in defiance of the clearly expressed admonition of the “father-pope.” Finally he firmly believed that there was a God in heaven, and that Voltaire and his followers were plunged in fiery pitch,—a fate which also, as many believed, was in waiting for Pan Maxim. However, as he grew to know him more intimately, he was obliged to admit that this heretic and fighter was a very good-natured and clever man, and so the Possessor compromised the matter.

“Let me tell you this, Vèlya,” he said, addressing his daughter, as he was on the point of leaving her to take her first lesson from Maxim, “never forget that there is a God in heaven and a Holy Father in Rome. I, Valentine Yaskùlski, say this to you; and you must believe me, because I am your father. That for _primo_. _Secundo_, I am a Polish nobleman, and on my coat-of-arms, together with the hay-rick and the crow, is a cross on an azure field. The Yaskùlskis were ever good knights, and at the same time they were not ignorant concerning religious matters; and for that reason also you must believe me. But in regard to all subjects relating to _orbis terrarum_ you are to respect what Pan Maxim Yatzènko tells you, and study faithfully.”

“Do not fear, Pan Valentine,” retorted Maxim, smiling, “we do not draft little Panis into Garibaldi’s regiment.”

VII.

Both children profited by this companionship in study. Although Petrùsya was farther advanced, there was still an opportunity for competition. Moreover, he could often help his new friend about her lessons, and she was very successful in devising methods of explanation in regard to subjects which were naturally difficult for a blind boy to comprehend. Her society had introduced a new element into his studies, contributing a pleasing excitement to his mental labors.

Taking it all in all, fate had certainly proved propitious in this gift of friendship. The boy no longer sought solitude; he had found that congenial companionship which the love of older people had not afforded, and in moments when his little soul was most peaceful he was glad to have his friend near him. They always went together to the cliff or to the river-bank. When he played, she listened with genuine delight; and after he had laid his pipe aside, she would describe in her vivid childlike way the various objects in Nature that surrounded them. She could not of course picture them with absolute fidelity, but from her simple description the boy gained a very clear idea of the characteristic coloring of every phenomenon which she described. Thus, for instance, when she spoke of the darkness with which the black and misty night shrouded the earth, he formed a conception of this same darkness from the low tones of her timid voice. Then again, as she raised her serious face and said to him, “Ah, what a cloud is coming toward us!—a very dark cloud!” he seemed directly to feel its cold blast, and in her voice he fancied the rustling sound of the creeping monster advancing threateningly upon him far above his head.

IV.

Blindness. Vague Questions.

There are natures that seem predestined for the gentle task of love, as well as for the anxieties of sorrow,—natures in whom a sympathy for the cares or griefs of others is a necessity as imperative as the air they breathe. They have been endowed with that calmness so essential for the fulfilment of every-day duties; all the natural longings for personal happiness seem to have been restrained and held in subserviency to the ruling characteristic of their temperaments. Such beings often appear too placid, too reasonable, and devoid of sentiment. They are insensible to the passionate longings of a life of pleasure, and follow the stern path of duty with as much contentment as if it were yielding them the most glowing joys. They seem as frigid and majestic as the mountain-tops. Commonplace human life abases itself at their feet; even gossip and calumny glide from their snowy white garments like spatters of mud from the wings of a swan.

Peter’s little friend presented all the traits of this type, which as the product of education or experience is but rarely seen. Like genius, it falls to the lot of the chosen few, and generally manifests itself early in life. The mother of the blind boy realized what good fortune had befallen her son in winning the friendship of this child. Old Maxim likewise appreciated this, and felt confident that since his pupil now enjoyed the benefit of an influence heretofore wanting, his moral development would make tranquil and continuous progress. But this proved a sad mistake.

II.

During the first few years of the child’s life Maxim had believed the boy’s mental growth to be under his entire control, and its processes, if not directly guided by his influence, at least so far affected by it that no new intellectual manifestation or acquisition could evade his vigilance. But when the boy reached that period of his life which forms the boundary between childhood and youth, Maxim realized how vain had been his audacious dreams of education. Nearly every week revealed something new, oftentimes something he had never anticipated; and in his efforts to discover the sources of the new idea, or representation thereof, Maxim was invariably baffled. A certain unknown influence, either organic growth or hereditary development, was evidently participating in Maxim’s educational plans; and he often paused reverently to contemplate the mysterious operations of Nature. In these outbreaks by which Nature effects her gratuitous revelations, disturbing, so to speak, the equilibrium between the supply of acquired knowledge on the one hand and that of personal experience on the other, Maxim had no trouble in following the connecting links of the phenomena of universal life, which diverging into thousands of channels enter into separate and “individual” lives.

This discovery was at first startling to Maxim, inasmuch as it revealed the fact that the mental growth of the child was subject to other influences beside his own. He became anxious for the fate of his ward, alarmed at the possibility of influences which could bring the blind man nothing but irremediable suffering. Then he tried to trace to their sources those mysterious springs which had leaped to the surface, hoping to obstruct their passage and check their influence over the blind child.

Nor had the mother failed to observe these things. One morning Pètrik ran up to her in an unusual state of excitement.

“Mamma, Mamma,” he exclaimed, “I saw a dream!”

“What did you see, my boy?” she asked; and in her voice there was a pathetic intonation as of doubt.

“I dreamed that I saw you and Uncle Maxim; and—”

“What else?”

“I don’t remember.”

“And do you remember me?”

“No,” replied the boy, thoughtfully, “I have forgotten everything.”

This was repeated several times; and each time the boy grew sadder and more restless.

III.

Once, as he was crossing the yard, Maxim heard from the drawing-room, where the music-lessons usually took place, some very queer exercises. They consisted of two notes. First, the highest key of the upper register was struck incessantly, in swift repetition; then the low reverberation of a bass note jarred upon the ear. Curious to discover what might be the meaning of these strange musical exercises, Maxim hobbled across the yard, and a minute later entered the drawing-room. He paused, and stood motionless in the doorway, contemplating the scene before him.

The boy, who was now ten years old, sat on a low stool at his mother’s feet. Beside him, craning his neck and turning his long beak from side to side, stood a tame stork which Joachim had presented to the “Panitch.” The boy fed him every morning from his own hands, and the bird followed his new friend and master from morning till night. At this moment Petrùsya was holding him by one hand, and slowly stroking his neck and back with the other, while an expression of deep thought and absorption rested on his face. The mother meanwhile, evidently excited and at the same time with a look of sadness, was striking with her finger the key that sent forth that sharp resonant note. At the same time, slightly bending forward from her seat, she watched the boy’s face with a painful scrutiny. When his hand, gliding along the brilliant white plumage, reached the tips of the wings, where the white plumes were suddenly replaced by black ones, Anna Michàilovna instantly moved her hand to the other key, and the low bass note, with its deep reverberations, echoed through the room.

Both mother and son were so much engrossed in their occupation that they had not observed Maxim’s entrance, until, recovering from his astonishment, he interrupted this performance: “Annùsya, what does this mean?”

Meeting Maxim’s searching glance, the young woman was as much confused as if a severe tutor had detected her in the commission of some fault. “You see,” she said in confusion, “he tells me that he can distinguish a certain difference between the colors of the stork, but he cannot understand wherein this difference consists. Truly he was the first one to mention it, and I believe he is right.”

“Well, what of it?”

“Well, I was trying, after a fashion, to explain this difference to him by sounds. Don’t be vexed, Max, but I really think that there is a correspondence.”

This unexpected idea took Maxim so entirely by surprise that at first he was at a loss for an answer. He asked her to repeat her experiments, and as he watched the rigid concentration of the boy’s expression he shook his head. “Believe me, Anna,” he said when he was alone with her, “it is better not to arouse thoughts in the boy’s mind, to which you can give no satisfactory solution. He must resign himself to his blindness,—there is no help for it; and it is our duty to keep him from trying to comprehend the light. For my part, I make every effort to avert each question, and if it were but possible to keep him removed from all objects likely to suggest them, he would no more realize that a sense is missing than we who possess five deplore the want of a sixth.”

The sister yielded as usual to her brother’s persuasive arguments; but this time both were mistaken. While overrating the influence of outside impressions, Maxim forgot the powerful stimulus which Nature communicates to a child’s soul.

IV.

They had before them a blind child, a future man, the possible father of a family. “Malevolent fate,” or perhaps “accident” hidden within the mysterious realm of phenomena, had closed forever those eyes,—the windows through which the soul receives impressions from the glowing, many-colored, changing world. Doomed never to behold the light of the sun, although not himself the offspring of the blind, he was still a link in the illimitable chain of bygone lives, and contained within himself the possibilities of future lives. All those living links now lost in the remote past, corresponding in proportion to their capacity to the impressions of light, had transmitted to him the inner faculty, and through him, blind though he was, to an endless succession of future generations who would possess the power of vision.[14]

Thus it was that in the depths of this child’s soul these hereditary forces lay dormant,—vague “possibilities,” hitherto unaffected by outside influences. The whole fabric of his mind, fashioned after the ancestral model, had reserved within itself a substratum of the impressions of light, the product of the countless experiences of his ancestors. Thus in his inner organization the blind man is like another possessing eyesight, but with eyes forever closed, Hence a dim yet ever present consciousness of desire that craves contentment; an undefined yearning to exercise the dormant powers of his soul which have never been called into action. Hence also certain vague forebodings and endeavors,—like the longing for flight, which children feel, and the joys of which they taste in witching dreams.

Now, at last, the instinctive inclination of little Peter’s childish fancies was reflected on his features in that look of troubled perplexity. Those hereditary, and yet as far as he himself was concerned undeveloped and therefore unshaped, “possibilities” of the ideas of light rose like obscure phantoms in the child’s mind, exciting him to aimless and distressing efforts. All his nature, in an unconscious protest against the individual “accident,” rose to claim the restoration of the universal law.

V.

Consequently, however much Maxim might try to exclude all outward impressions from his nephew, he had no control over the urgent cravings that came from within. With all his precautions he could but avert a premature awakening of these unsatisfied yearnings, and thereby diminish the boy’s chances of suffering. In every other respect the child’s unhappy fate, with all its cruel consequences, must take its course.

And like a dark shadow this fate advanced to meet him. From year to year the boy’s natural vivacity subsided, like a receding wave, while the melancholy that was echoing within his soul grew persistently, and left its impress on his temperament. His laughter, which in childhood resounded at every new and especially vivid impression, was now rarely heard. He was naturally less accessible to all that was bright and cheerful, and more or less humorous, than to that vague obscurity and gloom peculiar to the Southern nature, which finds reflection in the folk-songs. These made a deep impression on the boy’s imagination. The tears stood in his eyes whenever he heard how “the grave whispers to the wind in the field,” and he loved to wander through the fields himself, listening to this murmur. He longed more and more for solitude; and when in his hours of recreation he started off on his lonely walk, the family would avoid that direction, lest they might disturb his solitude.

Seated upon some mound out on the steppe, or on the hillock above the river, or on the familiar cliff, Petrùsya would listen to the rustling leaves, the whispering grass, the vague soughing of the wind across the steppe. All this harmonized perfectly with the deep seriousness of his mood. There, so far as in him lay, he was in absolute sympathy with Nature; he understood her; she disturbed him by no perplexing and unanswerable questions. There the wind fanned his very soul, and the grass seemed to whisper soft words of pity; and as the spirit of the youth in harmony with the gentle influences that surrounded him melted at the tender caress of Nature, he felt his bosom swell with an emotion that communicated itself to his whole being. In moments like these he would throw himself on the cool, moist grass and weep; but in these tears there was no bitterness. Again, he would seize his pipe, and enraptured by his own emotions would improvise pensive melodies suited to his mood and to the peaceful harmony of the steppe. One could easily understand that any human sound coming unexpectedly to interrupt this mood would affect him like a distressing discord. At such times the only fellowship possible to him was with a soul akin to his own; and in the fair-haired girl from the estate of the Possessor the boy enjoyed just such a companion.

This friendship was the more firmly knitted by mutual sympathy. If Evelyn contributed to their partnership her calmness, her gentle animation, or imparted to the blind boy some new detail of the surrounding life, he in turn gave her his sorrow. The little woman’s knowledge of him seemed to have dealt a serious blow to her tender heart: pluck a dagger from a wound, and the bleeding will increase. On the day when she first learned to know the blind boy on the hillock in the steppe, her sympathy for his affliction had really caused her acute pain, and his presence had grown by degrees quite indispensable to her. Separation seemed to renew and increase the poignant pain of her wound, and she longed to be with her little friend that she might appease her own suffering by ministering constantly to his comfort.

VI.

One warm autumn night both families were sitting on the terrace in front of the house, admiring the starry sky, with its blue distances and glimmering lights. The blind boy with his friend sat as usual by his mother’s side. All was still around the mansion, and for the moment they sat silent; only the leaves stirred from time to time, like startled things, with unintelligible murmurings, and then lapsed into silence.

Suddenly a meteor, leaping forth from the darkness, flashed across the sky in one brilliant streak; and as it gradually disappeared, it left behind a trail of phosphorescent light. Petrùsya seated beside his mother had linked his arm in hers, and she became suddenly conscious that he started and began to tremble.

“What—was that?” he asked, with a look of trouble on his face.

“It was a falling star, my child.”

“Ah yes, a star,” he said thoughtfully. “I felt sure that it was a star.”

“How could you know, my boy?” inquired the mother, with a pitiful accent of doubt in her voice.

“He is telling the truth,” exclaimed Evelyn; “he knows many things like that.”

This increasing sensitiveness indicated that the boy was evidently drawing near the critical period that lay between childhood and youth. Meanwhile his development pursued its quiet course. He seemed to have grown accustomed to his lot, and the exceptional and uniform character of his sadness,—a sadness cheered as it were by no single ray of light, but at the same time free from all eager cravings, and grown to be the habitual background of his life,—was in some measure mitigated.

But this proved to have been simply a period of temporary repose. Nature has appointed these resting-places that the young organism may gain strength to meet other attacks. During these calms, new questions imperceptibly rise to the surface and mature; and it needs but a touch to disturb this outward peace, and stir the soul to its very depths, even as the sea is lashed by a sudden squall.

V.

Love.

And thus a few more years went by. There were no changes in the peaceful mansion. The beech-trees in the garden rustled as of old, only their foliage seemed to have grown darker and thicker; the white walls, although they had warped and settled more or less, shone precisely as they used; the thatched roofs frowned the same as ever; and even the well-known sound of Joachim’s pipe might be heard at the usual hour from the direction of the stable. But Joachim himself, still a bachelor, and grown gray in the service as groom, chose rather to listen to the Panitch when he played either the piano or the pipe, it mattered not which. Maxim too, had grown still more gray. The Popèlski had no other children, and therefore their first-born, the blind boy, remained as ever the central object of interest, around which clustered the life of the whole mansion. It was for his sake that the family had thus isolated itself within its own narrow circle, contented with its tranquil existence, whose current had now united with the equally placid life of the Possessor’s “cabin.”

Thus Peter, who had now become a youth, had grown up like a hot-house plant, guarded from the rude winds of the outer world. He was still as of old in the centre of a vast, dark world. Darkness enveloped him in every direction,—above, around, on all sides; illimitable, eternal. His delicate and sensitive organism vibrated in response to every impression, like a finely strung instrument. This sensitive expectancy was perceptible in the blind youth’s disposition; he seemed to feel that the darkness was about to stretch forth its invisible arms and arouse by its touch that which now lay dormant in his breast, waiting only for the summons. But the dreary darkness around him, familiar from his childhood, replied only by the caressing murmur that rose from the old garden, inspiring him with vague, tranquillizing, and dreamy thoughts. The turbulent current of the far-off world, known to the blind boy only through the medium of song and story, had no entrance here. Amid the dreary whispers of the garden and the peaceful every-day life of the country house, he heard of the tumults and tribulations of the world from the lips of others; and his imagination pictured it all veiled in clouds of mystery,—like a song, an heroic poem, or a fairy tale.

Everything seemed favorable. The mother felt that the soul of her son, protected as by a wall was living in an enchanted dream, which was tranquil even if it were unreal. Evelyn, who had imperceptibly grown to womanhood, watched this enchanted tranquillity with her calm gaze, sometimes showing a slight surprise, or an expression of wonder as to future events, but never a shadow of impatience. Popèlski the father had brought his estate into a prosperous condition, but the good man troubled himself very little about his son’s future life. A man of Maxim’s temperament could only be ill at ease in this quiet life; he simply endured it, looking upon it as a temporary arrangement, which had interwoven itself into his plans in spite of himself. He deemed it necessary for the youth’s interior nature to gain strength and maturity, that he might be better able to cope with the rude assaults of life.

Meanwhile, outside the limit of this enchanted circle, life went on, seething, bubbling, and raging; and at last the time came when the old veteran decided to break into this circle,—to open the door of the hot-house, and admit a current of outside air.

II.

By way of breaking the ice, he invited an old friend, who lived about seventy versts from the Popèlski estate, to pay him a visit. In former times Maxim used to be the visitor; but he knew that some young people were staying at Stavruchènko’s house at that time, and so he wrote him a letter inviting the whole party. This invitation was accepted with pleasure. The two old men were bound by ties of friendship, and the young people were all familiar with the once famous name of Maxim Yatzènko, connected as it was with many a romantic tale. One of the sons of Stavruchènko was a student in the University of Kiev, in the School of Philology, very popular at that time. Another son was studying music in the St. Petersburg conservatory. Another member of the party was a young cadet, the son of a neighboring landlord. Stavruchènko was a vigorous old man, gray-haired, wearing a long mustache after the Cossack fashion, and the loose Cossack trousers tucked into the boots. His tobacco-pouch and pipe were suspended from his belt, and he spoke nothing but Little Russian; and beside his two sons, dressed in white sleeveless coats and embroidered Little Russian shirts, he vividly recalled Gògol’s Taras Bulbà with his followers. But Stavruchènko lacked the romantic characteristics of Gògol’s hero. He was on the contrary an excellent and practical landlord, who had always got on well with the serfs; and now that serfdom was abolished he was clever enough to adapt himself to the new conditions. He knew the people after the landlord fashion; that is, he knew every peasant in his village, and every peasant’s cow, and almost every extra coin in each peasant’s purse.

But if Stavruchènko did not have hand-to-hand encounters with his sons, like Bulbà, they were forever at odds, regardless of time or place. Everywhere, whether at home or abroad, endless disputes arose between the old man and the young people; it usually began on the part of the old man, who was always jeering at the “ideal Panitchis.” The Panitchis would grow excited, the old man likewise; whereupon an indescribable uproar would ensue, during which both sides would give and take some pretty severe thrusts. It was a reproduction of the differences between “Fathers” and “Sons;” only in the southwest, where a certain courtesy of manner prevails, such scenes in the family circle are more gracefully managed.

The young people who had been away at school from early childhood, had only seen the country during their vacation, and therefore had not the practical knowledge possessed by the father-landlords. When that tidal wave known as the “love of the people” came rushing in upon society, it found the young men in the higher classes of the Gymnasium. They turned their attention to the study of the lower classes, seeking their information at first in books. They soon proceeded, however, to the immediate study of the manifestations of the “national spirit” in its causes. In the southwestern districts the young Panitchis, in their white _svìtkas_[15] and embroidered shirts, devoted themselves to the fashionable amusement of “visiting the people.” They paid but slight attention to their economical condition, but made notes of the words and music of the _dùmkas_[16] and songs, studied the traditions, compared historical events with the traces they had left upon the popular mind, and looked upon the peasant in general through the poetical prism of an intellectually popular idealism. Thus the constant clashing of opinions diametrically opposed to one another entered into the disputes between the old man and the young people, and they were always at variance. And yet the old man himself listened with delight to the eloquent tirades of the young fellows.

“Just hear him,” Stavruchènko would say to Maxim, with a sly nudge of his elbow, while the student with flushed face and sparkling eyes was delivering his oration. “Hear him, he talks like a book! One might really imagine him a clever man. You had better tell us, you wise-head, how my Nechipòr deceived you.” The old man’s mustaches twitched, and he laughed heartily as he related with a purely Hohòl humor the tale of their discomfiture.

The young men blushed, but they paid him back in his own coin, saying: “If they were not familiar with the Nechipòrs and Hvèydkas in certain villages, they had studied the class as a whole; and from that point of view they deduced their generalizations. For the aged and experienced, whose habits of thought are fettered by routine, the forest is hidden by the trees that stand nearest, but young men can embrace the most remote perspective at a glance.”

The old man was not displeased to hear the learned discourses of his sons. “They did not go to school for nothing,” he often remarked, “but I can tell you that my Hvèydka will lead you like calves by a rope. That’s the way it is! But he cannot deceive me, for I can stuff him into my tobacco-pouch and put him in my pocket. You are nothing but youngsters and fools!”

III.

A discussion of this sort had but just ended. The older people returned to the house, and through the open windows one could from time to time hear snatches of Stavruchènko’s funny stories, together with the merry laughter of his audience.

The young people remained in the garden. The student spreading his _svìtka_ on the ground, with his sheepskin hat pushed on one side, had stretched himself out on the grass with affected carelessness. His older brother sat beside Evelyn on a bench near the wall. The cadet, in his carefully buttoned uniform, was seated next to them; while at a short distance, with drooping head, sat the blind youth leaning back against the window-sill. He was turning over in his mind the discussions he had just heard, which had stirred him deeply, even to agitation.

“What did you think of all that was said just now, Pani Evelyn?” said the student turning to her; “you have not spoken a single word.”

“What you told your father is all very fine; but—”

“Well—but what?”

The young girl did not reply at once. She let her work fall upon her lap, smoothed it out, and slightly bending forward began to examine it as if it absorbed her entire attention. It would have been difficult to say whether she was considering the advisability of using coarser canvas for her embroidery, or whether she was meditating over her reply.

Meanwhile the young men waited impatiently. The student, his face kindling with interest, rose on his elbow and turned toward the young girl. Her neighbor sat gazing at her with his calm and questioning eyes. The blind young man abandoned his easy attitude, sat up erect, and turned his face away from the others.

“But,” she said softly, still smoothing out her embroidery, “every man must choose his own career, gentlemen.”

“Lord bless us; what wisdom!” rudely exclaimed the student. “Really, how old are you, Pani?”

“Seventeen,” replied Evelyn, simply,—straightway adding, with an air of mingled triumph and curiosity, “I suppose you thought that I was a great deal older, didn’t you?”

The young men laughed.

“Had I been asked for an opinion concerning your age,” said her neighbor, “I should have been quite at a loss to decide between thirteen and twenty-three. At times you seem a mere child, and the next moment I hear you reasoning with the wisdom of an aged dame.”

“You must treat serious matters seriously, Gavrìlo Petròvitch,” said the young girl in tones of admonition, and once more returned to her work.

For a moment all were still. Evelyn resumed her needle-work with her former deliberation, while the young men looked with curiosity at the miniature form of this wise young person. Although she had grown and developed considerably since the time of her first meeting with Peter, the student’s comments upon her age were quite just. At the first glance this tiny, slender maiden seemed but a girl, although her tranquil, self-possessed movements revealed the dignity of a woman. Her face produced the same impression. That type of face seems peculiar to the Slav women. Handsome, regular features, outlined in calm severity; blue eyes, with a direct and tranquil gaze; pale cheeks, rarely tinged with color,—not however the pallor that is ever ready to flush with the burning flame of passion, but rather akin to the cold purity of the snow. Evelyn’s fair hair, glossy and abundant, showing darker reflections about her marble-like temples, was drawn back and gathered into one massive braid, which seemed to weigh her head back as she walked.

The blind youth, too, had grown taller and more mature. Any one seeing him at that moment, as he sat apart from the group just described, pale, agitated, and handsome, would have been instantly attracted by that peculiar face, upon whose surface every emotion of the soul was so plainly reflected. His black hair waved over a high forehead faintly lined by premature wrinkles; his cheeks alternately flushed and grew pale; the lower lip, slightly drooping at the corners, twitched nervously from time to time, and the large handsome eyes with their unwavering gaze added to this eminently South Russian type of face a somewhat unusual and sombre character.

“So Pani Evelyn supposes,” said the student in a sarcastic tone, after a short pause, “that the matters we have been discussing here are inaccessible to the feminine mind; that her sphere is to be limited by the nursery and the kitchen.”

The young girl replied with her usual seriousness: “No, you are mistaken. I understood all that was said,—therefore it is accessible to a woman’s mind. I spoke only for myself, individually.”

She became silent again, and bending over her work seemed so absorbed in it that the young man had not the courage to pursue his questions.

“Strange,” he muttered; “one might suppose that you had deliberately planned the entire course of your life.”

“Why should that seem strange, Gavrìlo Petròvitch?” replied the young girl gently. “Probably even Illyà Ivànovitch [that was the cadet’s name] has plans for the future, and he is younger than I.”

“You are right,” remarked the cadet, flattered by this supposition. “Not long ago I read the biography of N——. He too had definite plans for his life. He married at twenty, and was a commander at twenty-five.”

The student laughed sarcastically, and the young girl blushed.

“You see,” she said a moment later, in the same quiet tone, “every one plans his own career.”

No one replied, and a thoughtful silence fell upon the young people,—a silence beneath which a certain awkwardness was evident. They were all aware that the conversation had become personal; and the rustle of the darkening and seemingly displeased old garden was all the sound they heard.

IV.

These conversations and discussions, this buoyant current of youthful life charged with its questions, hopes, expectations, and opinions, came rushing like a passionate storm upon the blind youth. At first he listened to them with a look of surprise, but it was not long before he found that the stream rushed along paying no heed to him. No questions were asked him, neither was he invited to give his opinion; and it soon became evident to him that he stood apart in a solitude, the sadder since brought into contrast with the present wide-awake life of the mansion. Nevertheless he listened to all this that was so new to him, and his contracted brow and pallid face bore witness to his intense interest. Yet this feeling was tinged with gloom; his brain was swarming with bitter thoughts.

The mother looked sorrowfully at her son. Evelyn’s eyes expressed sympathy and alarm. Maxim alone did not seem to notice the impression that this noisy company made upon his nephew, and hospitably invited the guests to come often, assuring the young men that he would furnish them with abundant ethnographical material on their next visit.

The guests departed, promising to come again. The young men shook hands cordially with Peter when they said good-by. He nervously returned their pressure, and for a long time listened to the sound of the brìtchka as it rolled along the road. Then he turned suddenly and went into the garden.

After the departure of the guests everything at the manor lapsed into its former tranquillity; but to the blind youth this silence seemed strange, unusual, and peculiar. It implied an acknowledgment that an important event had taken place on the estate. The silent garden-paths where he was wont to hear only the whisper of the beech-trees and the lilacs, now resounded in his fancy with the echoes of recent conversations. From the open window of the drawing-room he heard the voices of his mother and Evelyn arguing with Maxim. He was struck by the pathetic tone of entreaty in his mother’s voice, while that of Evelyn rang out with indignation; Maxim meanwhile eagerly but firmly resisted the entreaties of the two women. Upon Peter’s approach, these discussions instantly ceased.

Consciously, and with pitiless hand, Maxim had made the first breach in the wall which till now encompassed his nephew’s world. The first noisy and tumultuous wave had already made its way through this breach, and the equilibrium of the young man’s soul was shaken by its onslaught. Now he realized the limitations of his magic circle; the quiet of the estate seemed oppressive to him, the indolent whisper and rustle of the old garden hung like a weight upon the peaceful dream of his young soul. Something wavered to and fro in the darkness, pressing toward him with wistful and enticing eagerness. It called and beckoned, awakening the questions that had been slumbering within him. The pallor of his face and a dull indefinite sense of misery in his soul were the visible signs that the summons was heard. Maxim meanwhile was preparing for a second breach.

V.

When in the course of two weeks the young men accompanied by their father came to repeat their visit, Evelyn received them with a certain coolness. But she found it hard to resist the charming animation of youth. All day long the young men roamed about the village, hunting and taking notes of the songs of the reapers; and in the evening they assembled as before around the bench, near the mansion.

On one of these evenings, before Evelyn realized the fact, the conversation had turned to subjects of a somewhat personal character. Neither could the others have told how this had come about; it had been as imperceptible as the fading of the evening twilight, or the falling of the shadows in the garden,—as imperceptible as the first notes of the nightingale’s song among the bushes. The young student spoke passionately, with a proud air of triumph, and with all that ardor peculiar to youth, which regardless of selfish calculations rushes to meet the unknown future. There was a strange fascination in this ardent faith, and something also akin to the indomitable power of a challenge.

The young girl blushed, for she felt that this challenge was perhaps unconsciously directed at her. She bent low over her work as she listened. Her eyes sparkled, her face flushed, her heart throbbed. The light faded from her eyes, her face grew pale, she compressed her lips; while her heart continued to beat still more violently, and a look of alarm came over her features. She was frightened, for under the influence of this student’s words, the dark garden wall seemed to part before her eyes, and through the opening she saw the far-away vista of a vast world full of life and activity. She was startled. It seemed to her that some one was about to pluck the knife from out her former wound.

This however was of short duration. Evelyn could control her own life; of that she was well aware. She had arrived at a decision in regard to her future life, and this decision was to be final; she had deliberated long concerning her first step in life, and proposed to act in accordance with her plan. This being accomplished, she would try to make the most of life. She turned her deep blue eyes from the student and looked toward the spot where Peter had been sitting. But he was no longer there.

Then quietly folding her work Evelyn rose also. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” she said, addressing the guests, “if I leave you to yourselves for a while.” And she started along the garden-path.

Evelyn was not the only person who had felt disturbed this evening. At the turn of the path, where the settle had been placed, the young girl heard the agitated voices of Maxim and his sister.

“Yes, I thought of her in this connection no less than I did of him,” the old man was saying; and his tone was harsh. “I cannot believe that you wish to take advantage of the ignorance of a mere child.”

Tears were in the voice of Anna Michàilovna as she replied, “But Max, what if—if she—What will become of my boy?”

Maxim had no time to reply. The young girl who had paused instinctively at the turning, now quickly advanced, and with proudly erect head walked past the speakers. Maxim involuntarily drew up his crutch that it might not be in her way, and Anna Michàilovna looked at her with an expression of love, mingled with adoration almost amounting to awe. The mother seemed conscious that this fair proud girl, who had just passed by with a look so angry and defiant, held in her hands the happiness or unhappiness of her son.

VI.

A ruined and abandoned mill stood in the garden. The wheels had ceased to turn, the cylinders were overgrown with moss, and the water trickled through the old locks in slender, never-ceasing streams. This was the blind youth’s favorite resort. Here he would spend hours on the parapet of the dam, listening to the sound of the trickling water, which he later reproduced to perfection on the piano. But now he was thinking of other things. Rapidly he trod the path, his heart filled with bitterness, and his face distorted by suffering. He paused when he heard the young girl’s light step; accustomed as he was to confide all his feelings to her, he felt no embarrassment in her presence.

Evelyn rested her hand on his shoulder as she asked,—“What is it? Why are you so sad?”

He did not reply at first, but turning, began once more to pace up and down the path. The young girl walked beside him.

Thus a few minutes went by in silence. It seemed as if the presence of Evelyn had a tranquillizing influence upon Peter’s mood; the keen pain diminished, his face grew more peaceful; the flood of sadness that had overwhelmed his soul began to subside, and a new sense of mingled pleasure and expectancy had taken possession of him. This feeling, to whose healing influence he had often yielded, he had never yet made an attempt to analyze. And now again his mood grew tender, although a shade of sadness still remained.

“Of course it made me feel sad,” he said, after a moment’s silence; “because I understood their words, although they were not directed toward me. I am useless, quite useless in the world. And why was I born into it?”

The girl glanced up at him with a look of alarm, and then as if with settled purpose she bent her head and resumed her walk by his side.

The blind youth stopped short. “Why, I ask, was I born into the world? And another thing—It may perhaps be true, as old people say, that affairs have changed for the worse; yet in old times the blind fared better than they do now. There was work for them, and they had a place in life. Why was I not born in times when blind minstrels used to wander from place to place? I would then take my lyre, or bandur,[17] and go from city to city and through the villages and distant steppes, and wherever I appeared the people would gather around me, while I sang to them of the deeds of their fathers, glorious and heroic, stirring their holiest feelings, and inspiring them with energy and courage. Thus I too could play a part in life. But now, even that cadet with his shrill voice,—you heard what he said about marrying and being a commander. They laughed at him; but for me even that is unattainable.”

Tears came into the young girl’s eyes, widening with alarm. “You are excited by the student’s talk.” She tried to speak lightly, but her agitation betrayed itself in her voice.

“Yes,” replied Peter, thoughtfully; “and what an agreeable fellow he is! He has a very pleasing voice.”

“Yes, he is agreeable,” said Evelyn, abstractedly; and her tone evinced a certain tenderness. Then as if vexed with herself she suddenly exclaimed in a passionate voice: “No, I don’t like him at all! He has too much self-assurance; and I think his voice is harsh and disagreeable.”

Peter listened in surprise to this angry sally. The girl stamped her foot as she went on:

“And it is all the most perfect folly! I know it has been a plan of Maxim’s contriving. Oh, how it makes me hate him!”

“Why, Vèlya,” expostulated the blind youth, “how can you blame Uncle Maxim for what has happened?”

“Oh, he thinks himself extremely clever; and he has destroyed every vestige of humanity within his breast by all these plans and schemes. Don’t speak to me of those people! I should like to know how they gained the right to arrange other people’s lives?” She stopped abruptly, clenched her slender hands and burst into a flood of childlike tears.

Peter took her hand and pressed it sympathetically. He was taken by surprise. This outburst from the usually calm and self-controlled girl was both unexpected and mysterious. As he listened to her weeping he was conscious of a new and peculiar emotion stirring within his breast.

Suddenly she gave him a fresh surprise by withdrawing her hand and bursting into a fit of laughter. “How silly I am! What in the world am I crying about?” She wiped her eyes and went on good-naturedly: “One must be just. They are both good, honest men, and what he said was all very well! But it does not apply to every one.”

“To every one who has the power,” replied the blind youth, scarce audibly.

“What nonsense!” she answered brightly; but in spite of her cheerfulness the traces of recent tears could still be detected in her voice. “Take Maxim for instance; he fought as long as he was able, and now he lives as best he may. And we also—”

“You say _we_? Why do you say that?” interrupted Peter.

“Because—well—because sometime you will marry me, and our lives will be one.”

Strangely confused and yet rejoicing, the blind young man drew back a step. “I—marry you? You mean—that you will—marry me?”

“Why, of course, of course!” she replied with mingled haste and agitation. “How dull you must be! Can it be possible that you have never thought of it? It seems so natural! Whom could you marry if not me?”

“To be sure,” he assented in his inconsiderate egotism. But instantly reflecting,—“Have you forgotten, Vèlya,” he said, taking her by the hand, “what these young men have just been telling us about the education that girls receive in the great cities? Consider what a career lies open before you, while I—”

“Well, what about you?”

“I—am blind!” he ended in a somewhat illogical conclusion.

The girl smiled, but continued in the same tone: “What if you are blind? I love you even so; hence it follows that I must marry you. That is the way things happen; what can we do about it?”

He also smiled, and dropped his head after his usual pensive fashion, as though he were listening to some voice within his soul. No sound could be heard save the gentle rippling of the water; and even that low murmur seemed at times to die away, but only to return with greater force, and ripple on forever. The leaves of the luxuriant wild cherry-tree whispered to one another, and the last pensive trills of the nightingale’s song echoed through the garden.

By this bold, unexpected, and yet gentle stroke the young girl had dispelled the lowering cloud that darkened the blind youth’s heart. Inspired by the new feeling that had taken possession of his whole being, he fervently pressed her little hand in his. A faint almost imperceptible pressure was the response. Then he clasped her round the waist and drew her toward him, gently stroking her silken hair with his other hand.

“Please, let me go, darling,” said the young girl, in low, shy tones as she released herself from his embrace.

Evelyn’s soft voice thrilled the blind youth’s heart. He made no effort to detain her, but as he yielded he heaved a profound sigh. He heard her smoothing her hair. His heart throbbed in deep but pleasing excitement, and he could feel the hot blood surging with a force hitherto unknown. And when a moment later she said to him, “Come, let us go back to the company,” he heard with delight and surprise a new music in her charming voice.

VII.

The hosts were in the little drawing-room, and all the guests had likewise assembled there; the only missing members were Peter and Evelyn. Maxim was conversing with his old comrade, and the young men sat in silence beside the open windows. One could not fail to observe the strangely quiet yet expectant air that brooded over this little circle, as if each one had a premonition of an impending crisis. Although Maxim never interrupted his conversation, he kept all the while throwing swift, impatient glances toward the door. Pani Popèlska was trying to play the amiable and devoted hostess, but her face bore a sad and almost guilty look. Pan Popèlski alone, who had grown a good deal stouter, but had lost none of his amiability, sat quietly dozing in his chair, waiting for supper.

All eyes turned in that direction when footsteps were heard on the terrace which led from the garden into the drawing-room. Within the broad, dusky doorway appeared the figure of Evelyn with the blind youth slowly mounting the steps behind her. The young girl, although conscious that every eye rested upon her, was not in the least embarrassed. Crossing the room with her usual composure, she smiled slightly as she met the glance that Maxim darted at her from beneath his brows, and her own eyes flashed back defiance. Maxim grew suddenly abstracted, and replied at random when a question was directly addressed to him. Pani Popèlska watched her son.

The young man followed the maiden, giving no apparent heed to the direction in which she was leading him. When his slender form and pale face appeared against the background of the doorway, he seemed to pause on the threshold of that room so brightly lighted and filled with guests; but after a moment’s hesitation he crossed it with the air of one both absent-minded and intensely absorbed, went up to the piano, and opened it.

For the moment Peter seemed utterly unconscious of his surroundings, forgetful of the presence of strangers, and instinctively longing for his favorite instrument as a vent whereby to express the emotions that were filling his bosom. Having raised the piano-lid, with his fingers resting lightly on the keys he struck a few rapid chords. It was as if he were putting a question, half to the instrument and half to his own soul. Then with his hands still resting on the keys, he remained plunged in deep thought, while utter silence reigned in the little drawing-room. The night looked in through the dusky windows, and here and there clusters of green leaves shining in the lamplight peered curiously in from the garden. The guests, their attention aroused by these few whispering chords, and influenced more or less by the strange inspiration that seemed to radiate from the face of the blind youth, sat in silent expectation.