Chapter VI: Front Matter (6)

“That is, ill in what way?” he said, and manlier notes sounded in his voice. “That’s all gossip; he was not at all ailing mentally.... he simply read all the time, and did not go out anywhere, that is all.... But no, don’t you take your hat off, please,--it’s very cold here, for we don’t live in this half of the building....”

True, it was far chillier in the house than it was out in the air. In the dismal ante-room, its walls pasted with newspapers, upon the sill of a window, dismal from the storm clouds, was standing a quail cage made out of bast. A little gray bag was hopping over the floor of its own volition. Bending down, the young man captured it and put it down on a bench, and Ivlev understood that there was a quail imprisoned in the little bag. They next entered the parlour. This room, with its windows toward the west and toward the north, took up almost half the entire house. Through one window, against the gold of the evening glow that showed through the clearing clouds, could be seen a century-old weeping birch tree, all black; through the remaining window, a tall, withering acacia tree. The front corner was taken up by a shrine without glass, with images standing and hanging within it; among them stood out, both by its great size and its antiquity, one trimmed with silver, and upon this image, their wax gleaming yellow like dead flesh, were lying wedding candles tied with pale-green bows.

“Pardon me, please,” Ivlev was about to ask, overcoming his scruples, “but, did your father really....”

“No, that’s just so,” mumbled the young man, instantly grasping his meaning. “He bought these candles after her death already.... And he even wore a wedding ring all the time.”

The furniture in this parlour was crude. But then, in the spaces between the windows stood exquisite what-nots, crowded from top to bottom with porcelain knick-knacks, crystal, tea china, and goblets rimmed with gold. As for the floor, it was entirely strewn over with dead bees, that crackled under foot. The empty parlour, as well, was strewed with the bees. Having traversed it, and also some other sombre room with a sleeping ledge built against the side of a stove, the young man came to a stop before a low little door and took a big key out of his trousers’-pocket. Having turned it with difficulty in the rusty key-hole, he threw open the door, mumbling something,--and Ivlev saw a cubby-hole with two windows: against one wall stood a bare iron cot without any bedding; against another--two little bookcases of bird’s-eye birch.

“So this is the library?” asked Ivlev, walking up to one of these.

And the young man, having hastened to answer in the affirmative, helped him to open the little book-case, and began to follow his hands covetously.

The strangest of books did this library consist of! Ivlev would open the thick bindings, would turn over a rough, gray page, and would read: _The Forbidden Ground_.... _The Morning Star and Fight Dæmons_.... _Reflections on the Mysteries of Creation_.... _A Marvellous Journey into a Magick Region_.... _The Latest Dream Book_.... And yet his hands would persist in trembling slightly. So this was what that lonely soul, which had secluded itself forever from the world in this little room and had but lately quitted it, had nurtured itself upon? ... But perhaps this soul had not really been insane, after all?

“‘There is a state....’” The lines of Baratynsky came into Ivlev’s mind:

There is a state,--
But what name shall it be given?
’Tis neither dream nor waking, wavering twixt both;
And comprehending it within him, man
To frenzy’s verge is driven....

It had cleared up in the west; gold was peeping out from behind the beautiful lavender-coloured clouds and strangely illumined this humble sanctuary of love,--a love beyond understanding, which had transformed into some ecstatic existence a whole life that perhaps was destined to be a most commonplace one had there not happened to be a certain Lushka, mysterious in her enchantment....

Taking a little foot-stool from under the cot, Ivlev sat down before the cabinet and took out his cigarettes, imperceptibly scrutinizing and memorizing the room.

“Do you smoke?” he asked the young man who was bending over him.

The latter again blushed. “I do,” he mumbled, and tried to smile. “That is, I don’t exactly smoke,--rather, I try to jolly myself.... But, however, if I may,--very much obliged to you....”

And, having clumsily taken a cigarette, he lit it with his hands trembling, walked over to the window-sill and sat down upon it, barring out the yellow light of the evening glow.

“And what is this?” asked Ivlev, bending down to the third shelf, upon which lay only a single volume, very small, resembling a prayer-book, and where also stood a casket whose corners were trimmed with silver, grown black with time.

“That’s just ... the necklace of my late mother,” answered the young man, after a confused hesitation, but trying to speak negligently.

“May I have a look?”

“If you please ... although it really is very simple ... it won’t interest you....”

And opening the casket, Ivlev saw a much worn bit of cord, a string of very cheap little round blue globules, resembling stone ones. And such emotion possessed him upon glancing at these globules, which had at one time lain upon the neck of her whose lot it was to be so beloved, and whose dim image could no longer be anything but beautiful, that his eyes grew dim from the beating of his heart.... Having looked his fill, Ivlev carefully put the casket back in its place; he then took up the little book. This was a tiny, beautifully made _Grammar of Love, or the Art of Loving and of Being Loved in Return_, published almost a hundred years ago.

“This book, to my regret, I cannot sell,” said the young man with difficulty. “It’s very valuable.... He even put it under his pillow.”

“But perhaps you will let me have just a look at it?” said Ivlev.

“If you please,” said the young man in a whisper.

And, overcoming his compunctions, vaguely oppressed by the young man’s gaze, Ivlev began slowly turning the leaves of _The Grammar of Love_. It was all divided into short chapters: _Of Beauty_, _Of the Heart_, _Of the Mind_, _Of Deportment_, _Of Love’s Signs_, _Of Attack and Defense_, _Of Falling Out and Reconciliation_, _Of Platonic Love_.... Each chapter consisted of very brief, elegant, at times very subtle, sentences, and some of them were very lightly marked by a pen in red ink. “Love is not a mere episode in our Life,” Ivlev read. “Our Reason contradicts the Heart and doth not convince the latter.” “Women are never so strong as when they arm themselves with Weakness.” “We adore Woman because she holds sovereign sway over our Ideal Dream.” “Vanity chooses; True Love,--never.” “A Woman of Beauty must take second place; the first belongs to the Woman of Charm. It is the latter that becomes the Sovereign of our Heart: before we have rendered our Heart an account of Her, our Heart becomes a Captive to Love for Eternity....” Then followed _An Explanation of the Language of Flowers_, and again here and there were marked passages:

_Wild Poppy_--Sadness.
_Priest’s Cap_--Thy alluring beauty is imprinted on my heart.
_Periwinkle_--Sweet Remembrances.
_The Mournful Geranium_--Melancholy.
_Worm-wood_--Eternal Bitterness.

While upon a blank page at the very end, in tiny, bead-like characters, was a stanza of eight lines, written in the same ink. The young man stretched out his neck as he peeped into _The Grammar of Love_, and said with a forced smile:

“He wrote that himself.”

Half an hour later, Ivlev bade him good-bye with relief. Out of all the books he had bought only this small volume at a high price. The turbidly-golden evening glow was fading in the clouds beyond the fields, yellowly reflected in the puddles; the fields were wet and green. The lad was not in any hurry, but Ivlev did not spur him on. The young fellow was saying that that woman who had been driving the turkey hens through the burdocks before was the deacon’s wife; that young Khvoshchinsky has been living with her for a long time now, that he already has children. Ivlev was not listening. He was constantly thinking of Lushka; of her necklace, which had left a complex feeling within him, resembling that which he had once experienced in a little Italian town upon beholding the relics of a female saint. “She has come into my life forever!” he reflected. And, taking _The Grammar of Love_ out of his pocket, he slowly read over, by the light of the evening glow, the verses written upon its last page:

We were assigned a thorny wreath
In this world, where all evils be;
The love I bore was unto death,--
It died with me.

But--“Live thou in legends of Love’s bliss!”
Shall greet it hearts that with Love strove;
And to their grandchildren shall show this
_Grammar of Love_.

_1915._

A NIGHT CONVERSATION