Chapter X: Part 10

Bazaroff got worse every hour. He was in the agonies of high fever. His mother and father watched over him, combing his hair and giving him gulps of tea. The old man was tormented by a special anguish. He wished his son to take the sacrament, though, knowing his attitude towards religion, he dared not ask him. At last he could keep back the words no longer. As in a broken voice he begged his son to see a priest, a strange look came over Bazaroff's face.

"I won't refuse if that can be any comfort to you, but I'll wait a little."

There was the sound of carriage wheels outside. Vassily Ivanovitch rushed to the door. A lady in a black veil and a black mantle, accompanied by a little German doctor in spectacles, got out of the carriage.

"I am Madame Odintsov," said the lady. "Your son is still living? I have a doctor with me."

"Benefactress!" cried Vassily Ivanovitch, snatching her hand and placing it convulsively to his lips. "Still living; my Yevgeny is living, and now he will be saved! Wife! wife!... An angel from heaven has come to us."

But when the doctor came out from examining his patient he breathed the news that there was no hope, and Vassily Ivanovitch conducted Madame Odintsov to his son's room. As she looked at Bazaroff she felt simply dismayed, with a sort of cold and suffocating dismay; the thought that she would not have felt like that if she had really loved him flashed instantaneously through her brain.

"Thanks," said Bazaroff from the bed. "I did not expect this. It's a deed of mercy. So we have seen each other again as you promised.... I loved you! there was no sense in that even before, and less than ever now. Love is a form, and my own form is already breaking up."

Madame Odintsov gave an involuntary shudder.

"Noble-hearted!" he whispered. "Oh, how young and fresh and pure... in this loathsome room! Well, good-bye.... I thought I wouldn't die; I'd break down so many things. I wouldn't die; why should I? There were problems to solve, and I was a giant! And now all the problem for the giant is how to die decently.... My father will tell you what a man Russia is losing.... That's nonsense, but don't contradict the old man. Whatever toy will comfort a child... you know. And be kind to mother. People like them are not to be found in your great world.... I was needed by Russia.... No, it's clear I wasn't needed. And who is needed?"

Bazaroff put his hand to his brow. Madame Odintsov bent down to him. "Yevgeny Vassilyvitch, I am here...." He at once took his hand away and raised himself.

"Good-bye," he said, with a sudden force, and his eyes gleamed with their last light. "Good-bye.... Listen.... You know I didn't kiss you then.... Breathe on the dying lamp, and let it go out...."

She put her lips on his forehead.

"Enough!" he murmured, and dropped back on to the pillow. "Now... darkness...."

Madame Odintsov went softly out. "Well?" Vassily Ivanovitch asked her in a whisper. "He has fallen asleep," she answered, hardly audible. But Bazaroff was not fated to awaken. That night he breathed his last. A universal lamentation arose in the house. Vassily Ivanovitch was seized by a sudden frenzy.

"I said I should rebel," he shrieked hoarsely, his face inflamed and distorted, shaking his fist in the air, as though threatening someone; "and I rebel, I rebel!"

But his wife, all in tears, hung upon his neck, and both fell on their faces together. "Side by side," said one of the servants afterwards, "they drooped their poor heads like lambs at noonday...."

* * * * *

There is a little grave in the graveyard, surrounded by an iron railing; two young fir-trees have been planted, one at each end. Yevgeny Bazaroff is buried in this tomb. Often from the little village not far off two quite feeble old people come to visit it--a husband and wife. At the iron railing they fall down and remain on their knees, and long and bitterly they weep and yearn and intently they gaze at the dumb stone under which their son is lying.... Can it be that their prayers, their tears are fruitless? Can it be that love, sacred, devoted love, is not all-powerful?

Oh, no! however passionate, sinning, and rebellious the heart hidden in the tomb, the flowers growing over it peep serenely at us with their innocent eyes; they tell us not of eternal peace alone, that great peace of "indifferent" nature; they tell us, too, of eternal reconciliation and of life without end.

* * * * *

A Nest of Nobles

"A Nest of Nobles" ("Dvorianskoe Gniezdo"), published in 1858,
brought Turgenev a European reputation. Of all his novels, "A
Nest of Nobles" is probably the best. It has all the love of
detail that is peculiar to the Slavonic mind, a trait which is
largely responsible for that feeling of pessimism that
pervades the writings of all those who have listened to the
"still, sad music of humanity." Yet Turgenev is not typical of
that Russian school of novelists of which Tolstoy and Gorki
are distinguished examples; rather he belongs to the school of
Thackeray, George Eliot, and Dickens.

_I.--A Student's Marriage_

Fedor Ivanitch Lavretsky came of an ancient noble family. His father, a strangely whimsical man, determined that his son should grow up a Spartan. A gymnastic instructor was his principal teacher, although he also studied natural science, mathematics, and international law. Music, as a pursuit unworthy of a man, was discarded. The female sex he was taught to hold in contempt, and all the gentler arts and emotions were rigorously repressed. The boy was conscious of defects in his education, and from his eighteenth year set himself to remedy them as far as he could. His father died when he was twenty-two, and young Lavretsky determined to go to Moscow, in the hope that diligent study might enable him to regain the ground lost in youth.

The whole tendency of his education had been to make him into a shy man: he could not get on with people; with an unquenchable thirst for love in his heart, he had never yet dared to look a woman in the face. Robust, rosy-cheeked, bearded, and taciturn, he produced a strange impression on his companions, who did not suspect that this outwardly austere man was inwardly almost a child. He appeared to them to be a queer kind of pedant; they did not care for him, made no overtures to him, and he avoided them. During the first two years he spent at the University he only became fairly intimate with one student, Mihalevitch by name, for he took lessons in Latin.

One day at the theatre he saw in a box in the front tier a young girl leaning her elbow on the velvet of the box. The light of youth and life played in every feature of her lovely dark oval face; subtle intelligence was expressed in the splendid eyes which gazed softly and attentively from under her fine brows, in the swift smile of her sensitive lips, in the very poise of her head, her hands, her neck.

Suddenly the door of her box opened, and a man came in--it was Mihalevitch. The appearance of this man, almost his only acquaintance in Moscow, on the society of the girl who had suddenly absorbed his whole attention, struck him as curious and significant. The performance ceased to interest Lavretsky, and at one pathetic part he involuntarily looked at his beauty: she was bending forward, her cheeks glowing. Under the influence of his persistent gaze her eyes slowly turned and rested on him.

All night he was haunted by those eyes. The skilfully constructed barriers were broken down at last; he was in a shiver and a fever, and the next day he went to Mihalevitch, from whom he learnt that her name was Barbara Paulovna Korobyin. Mihalevitch offered to introduce him; Lavretsky blushed, muttered something unintelligible, and ran away. For five whole days he struggled with his timidity; on the sixth he got into a new uniform and placed himself at Mihalevitch's disposal.

Paul Petrovitch Korobyin was a retired major-general. With the intention of improving his pecuniary position, he devised a new method of speculating with public funds--an excellent method in itself--but he neglected to bribe in the right place. Information was laid against him, and as a result of the subsequent inquiry he was advised to retire from active service. In Moscow he lived the life of a retired general on 2750 roubles a year.

His daughter at this time was nineteen years old, and the general found her expenses an ever-increasing tax upon his slender resources. He was therefore glad to throw no obstacle in Lavretsky's way--having discovered that he was wealthy--when, six months after their first meeting, he proposed for his daughter's hand.

Barbara Paulovna had much practical sense, and a very great love of comfort, together with a great faculty of obtaining it for herself. What charming travelling knick-knacks appeared from various corners of the luxurious carriage that she had purchased to convey them to Lavretsky's country home! And how delightfully she herself made coffee in the morning! Lavretsky, however, was not disposed to be observant at that time: he was blissful, drunk with happiness; he gave himself up to it like a child; indeed, he was as innocent as a child, this young Hercules. Not in vain was the whole personality of his young wife breathing with fascination; not in vain was her promise to the senses of a mysterious luxury of untold bliss: her fulfilment was richer than her promise.

Barbara Paulovna had no mind to establish herself permanently at Lavriky. The idea of staying in that out-of-the-way corner of the steppes never entered her head for an instant. In September she carried her husband off to St. Petersburg, where they passed two winters; the summer they spent at Tsarskoe Selo. They made many acquaintances, went out, and entertained a good deal, and gave the most charming dances and musical evenings. Barbara Paulovna attracted guests as fire attracts moths.

Fedor Ivanitch did not altogether like such a frivolous life. He was unwilling to enter the government service, as his wife suggested; still, he remained in St. Petersburg for her pleasure. He soon discovered, however, that no one hindered him from being alone; that it was not for nothing that he had the quietest and most comfortable study in St. Petersburg; that his tender wife was ever ready to aid him to be alone.

In the course of time a son was born to them, but the poor child did not live long--it died in the spring, and in the summer Lavretsky took his wife abroad. One summer and autumn they spent in Germany and Switzerland, and for the winter they went to Paris.

In Paris Barbara Paulovna made herself a little nest as quickly and as cleverly as in St. Petersburg. She soon drew round herself acquaintances--at first only Russians, afterwards Frenchmen with very excellent manners and fine-sounding names. All of them brought their friends, and _la belle Mme. de Lavretsky_ was soon known from Chausée d'Antin to Rue de Lille.

Fedor Ivanitch still busied himself with study, and set to work translating a well-known treatise on irrigation. "I am not wasting my time," he thought; "it is all of use; but next winter I must, without fail, return to Russia and get to work." An unexpected incident broke up his plans.

_II.--Separation_

Lavretsky had the most absolute confidence in his wife's every action and thought. She was always as calm, affectionate, and confidential with him as she had been from the first. It was therefore with a feeling of stupefaction that, going one day into her boudoir during her absence, he picked up from the floor a note that disclosed her infidelity. He read it absent-mindedly, and did not understand what he had read. He read it a second time--his head began to swim, the ground to sway under his feet.

He had so blindly believed in her; the possibility of deception, of treason, had never presented itself to his mind. He could not understand. This young Frenchman, almost the most insignificant of all his wife's acquaintances! The fear was borne in upon him that perhaps she had never been worthy of the trust he had reposed in her. To complete it all, he had been hoping in a few months to become a father.

All that night he wandered, half-distraught, about the streets of Paris and in the open country beyond. In the morning he went to an hotel and sent the incriminating note to his wife, with the following letter:

"The enclosed scraps of paper will explain everything to you. I cannot see you again; I imagine that you, too, would hardly desire an interview with me. I am assigning you fifteen thousand francs a year; I cannot give more. Send your address to the office of the estate. Do what you please. Live where you please. I wish you happiness!"

A long letter came back in reply: it put the finishing touch--his last doubts vanished. She did not attempt to defend herself; her only desire was to see him; she besought him not to condemn her irrevocably.

Three days later Lavretsky left Paris. For a time he followed his wife's movements, as chronicled in Paris society papers. He learnt that a daughter had been born to him. Finally a tragi-comic story was reported with acclamation in all the papers; his wife played an unenviable part in it. Barbara Paulovna had become a notoriety. He ceased to follow her movements. Scepticism, half formed already by the experiences of his life and by his education, took complete possession of his heart, and he became indifferent to everything.

Four years passed by till he felt himself able to return to his own country and to meet his own people. He went to the town of O----, where lived his cousin, Marya Dmitrievna Kalitin, with her two daughters, Elizabeth and Helena, and her aunt, Marfa Timofyevna Petrov.

_III.--A New Friendship_

Lavretsky stayed a few days in O---- before going to take up his residence, as he proposed doing, at Vassilyevskoe, a small estate of his some twenty miles distant. Mounting the steps of Kalitin's house to say good-bye before departing, he met Elizabeth coming down.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"To service. It is Sunday."

"Why do you go to church?"

Lisa looked at him in silent amazement.

"I beg your pardon; I did not mean to say that. I have come to say good-bye to you; I am starting for my village in an hour."

"Well, mind you don't forget us," said Lisa, and went down the steps.

"And don't forget me. And listen," he added; "you are going to church; while you are there, pray for me too."

Lisa stopped short and turned to face him. "Certainly," she said, looking straight at him; "I will pray for you too. Good-bye."

In the drawing-room he found Marya Dmitrievna alone. She began to gossip about a young man whom he had met the previous day, Vladimir Nikolaitch Panshin.

"I will tell you a secret, my dear cousin: he is simply crazy about my Lisa. Well, he is of good family, has a capital position, and is a clever fellow; and if it is God's will, I for my part shall be well pleased." She launched into a description of her cares and anxieties and maternal sentiments. Lavretsky listened in silence, turning his hat in his hands. Finally he rose, took his leave, and went upstairs to say good-bye to Marfa Timofyevna.

"Tell me, please," he began; "Marya Dmitrievna has just been talking to me about this--what's his name?--Panshin? What sort of man is he?"

"What a chatterbox she is, Lord save us! She told you, I suppose, as a secret that he has turned up as a suitor, and so far, there's nothing to tell, thank God! But already she's gossipping about him."

"Why thank God?"

"Because I don't like the fine young gentleman; and so what is there to be glad of in it?

"Well, shall we see you again soon?" the old lady asked, as he rose to depart.

"Very likely, aunt; it's not so far, you know."

"Well, go, then, and God be with you. And Lisa's not going to marry Panshin; don't you trouble yourself--that's not the sort of husband she deserves."

* * * * *

Lavretsky lived alone at Vassilyevskoe, and often rode into O------ to see his cousins. He saw a good deal of Lisa's music-master, an old German named Christopher Theodor Lemm, and, finding much in common with him, invited him to stay for a few days.

"Maestro," said Lavretsky one morning at breakfast, "you will soon have to compose a triumphal cantata."

"On what occasion?"

"On the nuptials of M. Panshin and Lisa. It seems to me things are in a fair way with them already."

"That will never be," cried Lemm.

"Why?"

"Because it is impossible."

"What, then, do you find amiss with the match?"

"Everything is amiss, everything. At the age of nineteen Lisavetta is a girl of high principles, serious, of lofty feelings, and he--he is a dilettante, in a word."

"But suppose she loves him?"

"No, she does not love him; that is to say, she is very pure in heart, and does not know herself what it means--love. Mme. de Kalitin tells her that he is a fine young man, and she obeys because she is quite a child. She can only love what is beautiful, and he is not--that is, his soul is not beautiful...."

It sometimes happens that two people who are acquainted but not on intimate terms all of a sudden grow more intimate in a few minutes. This was exactly what came to pass with Lavretsky and Lisa. "So he is like that," was her thought as she turned a friendly glance at him. "So you are like that," he, too, was thinking. And thus he was not very much surprised when she began to speak to him about his wife.

"You will forgive me--I ought not to dare to speak of it to you... but how could you... why did you separate from her?"

Lavretsky shuddered. He looked at Lisa and sat down beside her. "My child," he began, "do not touch on that woman; your hands are tender, but it will hurt me just the same."

"I know," Lisa continued as though she had not heard. "I know she has been to blame. I don't want to defend her; but what God has joined, how can you put asunder? You must forgive, if you wish to be forgiven."

"She is perfectly contented with her position, I assure you. But her name ought never to be uttered by you. You are too pure. You are not capable of understanding such a creature."

"Then, if she is like that, why did you marry her?"

Lavretsky got up quickly from his seat. "Why did I marry her? I was young and inexperienced; I was deceived, I was carried away by a beautiful exterior. I knew no women, I knew nothing. God grant that you may make a happier marriage."

At that moment Marya Dmitrievna came in. Lavretsky did not again succeed in being alone with Lisa, but he looked at her in such a way that she felt her heart at rest, and a little ashamed and sorry for him. Before he left, he had obtained from his cousin a promise that she would come over to Vassilyevskoe one day with her daughters.

When they came Lavretsky made further opportunities to talk with Lisa, while the others were fishing. He led the conversation round to Panshin.

"Vladimir Nikolaitch has a good heart," said Lisa, "and he is clever; mother likes him."

"And do you like him?"

"He is nice; why should I not like him?"

"Ah!" A half ironical, half mournful expression crossed his face. "Well, may God grant them happiness," he muttered as though to himself.

Lisa flushed. "You are mistaken, Fedor Ivanitch. You are wrong in thinking--but don't you like Vladimir Nikolaitch?"

"No, I don't."

"Why?"

"I think he has no heart."

"What makes you think he has no heart?"

"I may be mistaken--time will show, however."

Lisa grew thoughtful. Lavretsky began to talk to her about his daily life at Vassilyevskoe. He felt a need to talk to her, to share with her everything that was passing in his heart; she listened so sweetly, so attentively. Her few replies and observations seemed to him so intelligent....

_IV.--Love and Duty_

Glancing one day at a bundle of French newspapers that had been lying on the table unopened for a fortnight, Lavretsky suddenly came upon a paragraph announcing "Mournful intelligence: That charming, fascinating Moscow lady, Mme. Lavretsky, died suddenly yesterday."

He hastened over to O----and communicated the news to Lisa, requesting her to keep it secret for a time. They walked in the garden; Lavretsky discussed his newly won freedom.

"Stop!" said Lisa, "don't talk like that. Of what use is your freedom to you? You ought to be thinking of forgiveness."

"I forgave her long ago."

"You don't understand! You ought to be seeking to be forgiven."

"You are right," said Lavretsky after a pause; "what good is my freedom to me?"

"When did you get that paper?" said Lisa without heeding his question.

"The day after your visit."

"And is it possible that you did not shed tears?"

"What is there to weep over now? Though, indeed, who knows? I might perhaps have been more grieved a fortnight sooner."

"A fortnight?" said Lisa. "But what has happened, then, in the last fortnight?"

Lavretsky made no reply, and suddenly Lisa flushed violently.

"Yes, yes! you guess why. In the course of this fortnight I have come to know the value of a pure woman's heart. But I am glad I showed you that paper," Lavretsky continued after a pause; "already I have grown used to hiding nothing from you, and I hope that you will repay me with the same confidence...."

Lavretsky was not a young man; he could not long delude himself as to the nature of the feeling inspired in him by Lisa. He was brought that day to the final conviction that he loved her.

"Have I really nothing better to do," he thought, "at the age of thirty-five, than to put my soul into a woman's keeping again? But Lisa is not like her; she would not demand degrading sacrifices from me; she would not tempt me away from my duties; she would herself incite me to hard, honest work, and we should walk hand in hand towards a noble aim. That's all very fine," he concluded his reflections, "but the worst of it is that she does not in the least wish to walk hand in hand with me. But she doesn't in the least love Panshin either... a poor consolation!"

Painful days followed for Fedor Ivanitch. He found himself in a continual fever. Every morning he made for the post and tore open letters and papers; nowhere did he find confirmation or disproof of the fateful news.

Late one night he found himself wandering aimlessly around the outskirts of O----. Rambling over the dewy grass he came across a narrow path leading to a little gate which he found open. Wandering in, he found, to his amazement, that he was in the Kalitins' garden. In Lisa's room a candle shone behind the white curtains; all else was dark. The light vanished as he looked.

"Sleep well, my sweet girl," he whispered, sitting motionless, his eyes fixed on the darkened window. Suddenly a light appeared in one of the windows of the ground floor, then another. Who could it be? Lavretsky rose... he caught a glimpse of a well-known face. Lisa entered the drawing-room--she drew near the open door, and stood on the threshold, a light, slender figure, all in white.

"Lisa!" broke hardly audibly from his lips. She started, and began to gaze into the darkness. "Lisa!" he repeated louder, and came out of the shadow.

She raised her head in alarm, and shrank back. "Is it you?" she said. "You here?"

"I--I--listen to me," whispered Lavretsky, and seizing her hand he led her to a seat. She followed him unresisting. Her pale face, her fixed eyes, and all her gestures expressed an unutterable bewilderment. Lavretsky stood before her. "I did not mean to come here," he began; "something brought me. I--I love you," he uttered, in involuntary terror. She tried to get up--she could not; she covered her face with her hands.

"Lisa!" murmured Lavretsky. "Lisa," he repeated, and fell at her feet. Her shoulders began to heave slightly.

"What is it?" he urged, and he heard a subdued sob. His heart stood still... he knew the meaning of those tears. "Can it be that you love me?" he whispered, and caressed her knees.

"Get up!" he heard her voice. "Get up, Fedor Ivanitch. What are we doing?"

He got up and sat beside her on the seat.

"It frightens me; what we are doing?" she repeated.

"I love you," he said again. "I am ready to devote my whole life to you."

She shuddered again as though something had stung her, and lifted her eyes towards heaven.

"All that is in God's hands," she said.

"But you love me, Lisa? We shall be happy."

She dropped her eyes. He softly drew her to him, and her head sank on to his shoulder--he bent his head a little and touched her pale lips....

On the following day Lavretsky drove over to Vassilyevskoe. The first thing that struck him on entering was the scent of patchouli, always distasteful to him. There were some travelling trunks in the hall. He crossed the threshold of the drawing-room--a lady arose from the sofa, made a step forward, and fell at his feet. He caught his breath... he leaned against the wall for support.... It was Barbara Paulovna!

A torrent of words told him that, stricken by remorse, she had determined to break every tie with her sins. A serious illness had given rise to the rumour of her death. She had taken advantage of this to give up everything. Would he not spare her for their little daughter's sake?

Lavretsky listened to the flood of eloquence in silence. He did not believe one word of her protestations. His wrath choked him: this blow had fallen so suddenly upon him.

* * * * *

Lisa bent forward in her chair and covered her face with her hands.

"This is how we were to meet again," he brought out at last. It was in Marfa Timofyevna's room that they met once more. Lisa took her hands from her face. "Yes!" she said faintly. "We were quickly punished."

"Punished!" said Lavretsky. "What had you done to be punished?" His heart ached with pity and love. "Yes, all is over before it had begun."

"We must forget all that," she brought out at last. "It is left for us to do our duty. You, Fedor Ivanitch, must be reconciled with your wife."

"Lisa!"

"I beg you to do so: by that alone can you expiate..."

"Lisa, for God's sake!--to be reconciled to her now!"

"I do not ask of you--do not live with her if you cannot. Remember your little girl; do it for my sake."

"Very well," Lavretsky muttered between his clenched teeth; "I will do that; in that I shall fulfil my duty. But you--what does your duty consist in?"

"That I know myself."

Lavretsky started: "You cannot be making up your mind to marry Panshin?"

Lisa gave an almost imperceptible smile--"Oh, no!" she said.

"Now you see for yourself, Fedor Ivanitch, as I told you before, that happiness does not depend on us, but on God."

* * * * *

Smoke

Considered simply as stories, "Fathers and Sons" and "Smoke"
are to all intents and purposes independent of each other, yet
in important particulars the latter is a sequel to the first.
Once on his arrival at St. Petersburg, Turgenev was met with
the words, "Just see what your Nihilists are doing! They have
almost gone so far as to burn the city." Thus again he took up
the question of social reform, and in "Smoke" ("Dim") he views
with apprehension the actions of the so-called
"intellectuals," who would make themselves responsible for the
shaping of future Russia. Charlatans among the leaders of the
new thought, and society dilettantism, both came under his
merciless lash. In his opinion the men and ideas in the two
camps are no more than smoke--dirty, evil-smelling smoke. The
entire atmosphere is gloomy, and throughout is only relieved
by the character of Irina, the most exquisite piece of
feminine psychology in the whole range of Turgenev's novels.

_I.--A Broken Idyll_

Early in the fifties there was living in Moscow, in very straitened circumstances, almost in poverty, the numerous family of the Princes Osinin. These were real princes--not Tartar-Georgians, but pure-blooded descendants of Rurik. Time, however, had dealt hardly with them. They had fallen under the ban of the Empire, and retained nothing but their name and the pride of their nobility.

The family of Osinins consisted of a husband and wife and five children. It was living near the dog's place, in a one-storied little wooden house with a striped portico looking on to the street, green lions on the gates, and all the other pretensions of nobility, though it could hardly make both ends meet, was constantly in debt at the green-grocer's, and often sitting without firewood or candles in the winter. Though their pride kept them aloof from the society of their neighbours, their straitened circumstances compelled them to receive certain people to whom they were under obligations. Among the number of these was Grigory Mihalovitch Litvinov, a young student of Moscow, the son of a retired official of plebeian extraction, who had once lent the Osinins three hundred roubles. Litvinov called frequently at the house, and fell desperately in love with the eldest daughter, Irina.

Irina was only seventeen, and as beautiful as the dawn. Her thick fair hair was mingled with darker tresses; the languid curves of her lovely neck, and her smile--half indifferent, half weary--betrayed the nervous temperament of a delicate girl; but in the lines of those fine, faintly smiling lips there was something wilful and passionate, something dangerous to herself and others. Her dark grey eyes, with shining lashes and bold sweep of eyebrow, had a strange look in them; they seemed looking out intently and thoughtfully--looking out from some unknown depth and distance. Litvinov fell in love with Irina from the moment he saw her (he was only three years older than she was), but for a long while he failed to obtain not only a response, but even a hearing. She treated him with hostility, and the more he showed his love, the greater was her coldness, the more malignant her indifference. She tortured him in this way for two months. Then everything was transformed in one day.

Worn out by this cold torture, Litvinov was one night about to depart in despair. Without saying good-bye, he began to look for his hat. "Stay," sounded suddenly in a soft whisper. With throbbing heart he looked round, hardly believing his ears. Before him he saw Irina, transformed. "Stay," she repeated; "don't go. I want to be with you."

From that moment of the discovery of her love, Irina was changed. She, who before had been proud and cruel, became at once as docile as a lamb, as soft as silk, and boundlessly kind.

"Ah, love me, love me, my sweet, my saviour," she would whisper to him, with her arms about his neck.

In this new dream of happiness the days flew, the weeks passed; the future came ever nearer with the glorious hope of their happiness, and then, suddenly, an event occurred which scattered all their dreams and plans like light roadside dust. The Court came to Moscow, and the Osinins, despite their poverty, determined to attend the customary great ball in the Hall of Nobility. At first Irina resolutely refused to go, and Litvinov was called in by the prince to use his persuasion.

"Very well, then, I will go," she said, when she had listened to his arguments; "only remember, it is you yourself who desired it."

She spoke so strangely that he feared he had offended her.

"Irina, darling, you seem to be angry."

Irina laughed.

"Oh, no! I am not angry. Only, Grisha..." (She fastened her eyes on him, and he thought he had never before seen such an expression in them.) "Perhaps it must be," she added, in an undertone.

"But, Irina, you love me, dear?"

"I love you," she answered, with almost solemn gravity, and she clasped his hand firmly like a man.

She went to the ball in a simple white dress, wearing a bunch of heliotrope, the gift of her lover. When he called the following day, Litvinov heard from the prince of the impression Irina had created; how all the great noblemen from St. Petersburg, and even the Czar himself, had commented upon her beauty. But Irina herself he did not see. She had a bad headache, the prince explained. The following day he was again denied a sight of her, and as he turned once more from the house he saw a great personage drive up in a magnificent carriage. A dread foreboding seized him. Dull stupefaction, and thoughts scurrying like mice, vague terror, and the numbness of expectation and the weight of crushed tears in his heavy-laden breast, on his lips the forced, empty smile, and a meaningless prayer--addressed to no one....

As he walked down the street his servant touched him on the shoulder, handing him a note. He recognised Irina's writing. He tore open the envelope all at once. On a small sheet of notepaper were the following lines:

"Forgive me, Grigory Mihalovitch. All is over between us; I am going away to Petersburg. I am dreadfully unhappy, but the thing is done. It seems my fate... but no, I do not want to justify myself. My presentiments have been realised. Forgive me, forget me! I am not worthy of you.--Irina. Be magnanimous: do not try to see me."

The blow almost broke Litvinov's heart. A rich cousin of the Princess Osinin, struck by the impression created by the girl at the ball, had taken her to Petersburg, to use her as a pawn in his struggle for power. Utterly crushed, Litvinov threw up the University and went home to his father in the country. He heard of her occasionally, encircled in splendour. Her name was mentioned with curiosity, respect, and envy, and at last came the news of her marriage to General Ratmirov.

_II--Temptation_

Ten years had passed--ten years during which much had happened to Litvinov. He had served in the Crimea, and, after almost dying of typhus, had been invalided home. Observation had shown him that his father's management of their property was so old-fashioned that it did not yield a tenth of the revenue it might yield in skillful hands. He determined to go abroad to study agriculture and technology, so that he might properly manage the estate. In various parts of Europe, in England as well, he had travelled and studied, and now he found himself at Baden, his work concluded, ready to take up his duties.

He was at Baden for two reasons: first, because he was espoused to his cousin, Tatyana Petrovna Shestov, whom he had grown to dearly love, and who had promised to be his comrade and friend "for better or worse," as the English say. And he was at Baden, also, because Tatyana's aunt, Kapitolina Markovna Shestov, an old unmarried lady of fifty-five, a good-natured, honest, eccentric soul--a democrat, sworn opponent of aristocracy and fashionable society--could not resist the temptation of gazing for once on the aristocratic society which sunned itself in such a fashionable place as Baden.

While he was expecting the arrival of his betrothed, Litvinov found himself compelled to pass his time in the society of his fellow-countrymen--ardent young Russian Liberals of both sexes, bubbling over with new theories and enthusiasm, and ready to talk for hours together on the political and social regeneration of their native country. As far as possible, he avoided their society, and escaped into the solitudes of the mountains. It was during one of these lonely excursions that, feeling hungry, he made his way to the old castle, and, seating himself at one of the little white-painted tables of the restaurant, ordered a light breakfast. While he was seated there, there was a loud tramping of horses, and a party of young Russian generals--persons of the highest society, of weight and importance--arrived, and with much noise and ostentation summoned the obsequious waiters to attend to their wants. Litvinov made haste to drink off his glass of milk, paid for it, and, putting his hat on, was just making off past the party of generals...

"Grigory Mihalovitch," he heard a woman's voice, "don't you recognise me?"

He stopped involuntarily. That voice... that voice had too often set his heart beating in the past... He turned round and saw Irina.

Litvinov knew her at once, though she had changed since he saw her that last time ten years ago, though she had been transformed from a girl into a woman.

"Irina Pavlovna," he uttered, irresolutely.

"You know me? How glad I am! how glad--" She stopped, blushing. "Let me introduce you to my husband."

One of the young generals, Ratmirov by name, almost the most elegant of all, got up from his seat at the introduction, and bowed with a dandified air. Litvinov would have escaped, but Irina insisted on his sitting down. For a time he had to listen to the empty, meaningless talk of the company, hardly able to say a word to Irina. At last his clean plebeian pride revolted. He rose to his feet, somehow took leave of Irina and her husband, and walked rapidly away, trying to brace and soothe his nerves by violent exercise.

"Oh, Tatyana, Tatyana!" he cried passionately to himself. "You are my guardian angel! you only my good genius! I love you only, and will love you for ever, and I will not go to see her. Forget her altogether! Let her amuse herself with her generals."

That very evening Irina sent him a message, asking him to come and see her, and, in spite of all his determinations, he went. She saw him alone in a room in one of the best hotels in Baden. "Grigory Mihalovitch," she cried, as soon as he had closed the door behind him, "here we are alone at last, and I can tell you how glad I am at our meeting, because it... gives me a chance... of asking your forgiveness."

Litvinov started involuntarily at this unexpected reference to old times.

"Forgiveness... for what?" he muttered.

"For what? I wronged you, though of course it was my fate, and I do not regret it. You must tell me you forgive me, or else I shall imagine you feel... _de la rancune_."

As he looked into her beautiful eyes, shining with tears, Litvinov's senses seemed to swim.

"I will remember nothing," he managed to say; "nothing but the happy moments for which I was once indebted to you."

Irina held out both hands to him; Litvinov clasped them warmly, and did not at once let them go. Something that long had not been secretly stirred in his heart at that soft contact.... They fell into conversation, he learning from her something of her life, she extracting from him in fragments the details of his career. General Ratmirov's arrival put an end to their converse, and Litvinov rose to depart. At the door Irina stopped him.

"You have told me everything," she said, "but the chief thing you have concealed. You are going to be married, I am told."

Litvinov blushed up to his ears. As a fact, he had intentionally not referred to Tatyana.

"Yes, I am going to be married," he said at last, and at once withdrew.

He came away, swearing to himself that he would never see her again. Next day he met her on his way to the mountains, but pretended not to see her. On his return he found her sitting alone on a bench in the fashionable walk. She stopped him, insisting, with an unsteady voice, on speaking to him. He tried to be frank with her, pointing out that their paths lay far apart, that she belonged to a society which he did not understand, that she was above him, beyond him. But her passionate appeal that they should at least be friends melted his determination, and he left her with a promise to call again that very night.

When he returned once more to his rooms, he made a desperate effort to recover his senses. Taking out a picture of Tatyana, he placed it in front of him, and stared at it long and eagerly. Suddenly he pushed it gently away, and clutched his head in both hands.

"All is at an end," he whispered at last. "Irina! Irina!"

He realised in an instant that he was irrevocably, senselessly, in love with her.

"But Tatyana, Tatyana, my guardian, Tatyana, Tatyana!" he repeated, while Irina's shape, as he had seen her last, rose before his eyes with a radiant calm of victory on her marble-white face.

Next day he told her of his love. For answer she threw her arms round his neck and whispered in his ear, "I love you, too.... I love you... and you know it."

"You must go," she went on suddenly, moving away from him and turning impulsively toward the door. "It's dangerous, it's terrible.... Good-bye."

Litvinov stood, like a block of wood, at a distance. Once more she said, "Good-bye, forget me," and, without looking round, rushed away.

As he left the hotel, like a man in a fog, he passed Ratmirov on the stairs. The general lifted his hat unnecessarily high, and wished him a very good day in a voice which was obviously ironical.

He hardly responded to Ratmirov's bow, but rushed back to his lodgings. His head was turning round, and his heart vibrating like a harp-string. He tried to pull himself together. He would fly from her. "If I die for it," he muttered to himself. He packed his bag and trunk with furious energy, determined to go that very night. As he was in the midst of his preparations, a note was brought him from Irina.

"Sooner or later," she wrote, "it must have been. My life is in your hands. If necessary, I will throw up everything and follow you to the ends of the earth. We shall see each other to-morrow, of course. Your Irina."

Two hours later he was sitting in his room on the sofa. His box stood in the corner, open and empty.

_III--A Ruined Life_

Tatyana and her aunt arrived the following day at twelve o'clock. Litvinov was at the station to meet them--a different Litvinov from the one who a few days before had been so self-confident, so spiritual, so calm and content. His whole appearance, his movements, the expression of his face, had been transformed. Some sensation, unknown before, had come, strong, sweet--and evil; the mysterious guest had made its way to the innermost shrine, and taken possession and lain down in it in silence, but, in all its magnitude, like the owner in a new house. Litvinov was no longer ashamed, he was afraid; he had been vanquished, vanquished suddenly... and what had become of his honesty? The first look at Tatyana, the first look of Tatyana... that was what filled him with terror, that was what he had to live through directly... and afterwards?... afterwards?... Come what may come!

The train steamed in. Tatyana, standing near her aunt, smiled brightly and held out her hand. He helped them to a fly and took a place in it opposite them. He brought himself at last to look at Tatyana. His heart throbbed with involuntary emotion; the serene expression of that honest, candid face gave him a pang of bitter reproach. "So you are here, poor girl," he thought. "You whom I have so longed for, so urged to come, with whom I had hoped to spend my life to the end, you have come, you believe in me... while I... while I..."

But Kapitolina Markoyna gave him no time for musing. She was full of chatter, full of interest in everything that was going on, afire to see all the fine aristocrats, though she abused them soundly.

After doing a round of the sights, Litvinov, his mind always on the rack, led the ladies back to their hotel. As they entered a note was handed to him. He tore open the envelope and read the words within, scribbled in pencil: "Come to me this evening at seven, for one minute, I entreat you. Irina."

After dinner Litvinov escorted the two ladies to their room, and, after standing a little while at the window, with a scowl on his face, he suddenly announced that he had to go out for a short time on business. Tatyana said nothing; she turned pale and dropped her eyes. She was well aware that Litvinov knew that her aunt took a nap after dinner; she had expected him to take advantage of it to remain with her. He had not been alone with her nor spoken frankly to her since her arrival. And now he was going out! What was she to make of it? And, indeed, his whole behaviour all along....

In a few minutes he was with Irina, holding her in his arms.

"I can't live without you, Irina," he whispered; "I am yours for ever and always. I can only breathe at your feet."

He stooped down, all in a tremble, to kiss her hand. Irina gazed at his bent head.

"Then let me say that I, too, am ready for anything; that I, too, will consider no one and nothing. As you decide, so it shall be. I, too, am for ever yours... yours."

He tore himself away with difficulty. He had turned his back on his upright, well-organised, orderly future. The thing was done, but how was he to face his judge? And if only his judge would come to meet him--an angel with a flaming sword; that would be easier for a sinning heart... instead of which, he had himself to plunge the knife in... infamous! but to turn back, to abandon that other, to take advantage of the freedom offered him, recognised as his... No, no! better to die! No, he would have none of such loathsome freedom... but would humble himself in the dust, and might those eyes look down on him with love.

Two hours later he was back again, trying to talk to the girl he determined to deceive. He felt a continual gnawing of conscience; whatever he said, it always seemed to him that he was telling lies, and Tatyana was seeing through it. The girl was paler than usual, and, replying to her aunt, she said she had a little headache.

"It's the journey," suggested Litvinov, and he positively blushed with shame.

"Yes, the journey," repeated Tatyana, letting her eyes dwell for a moment on his face.

In the night, at two o'clock, Kapitolina Markovna, who was sleeping in the same room with her niece, suddenly lifted up her head and listened.

"Tatyana," she said, "you are crying?"

Tatyana did not at once answer.

"No, aunt," sounded her gentle voice; "I have caught cold."

In the course of that dreadful night Litvinov had arrived at a resolution. He determined to tell Tatyana the truth, and in the morning he steeled himself for the interview. He found her alone, and with an effort stumbled out the introductory words of his confession. Tatyana stopped him abruptly in the middle.

"Grigory Mihalovitch," she said in a measured voice, while a deathly pallor overspread her whole face, "I will come to your assistance. You no longer love me, and you don't know how to tell me so."

He flung himself on his knees before her.

"Tatyana," he cried, "could I dream that I should bring such a blow upon you, my best friend, my guardian angel! I have come to tell you that your friend is ruined, that he is falling into the pit, and would not drag you down with him, but save me... no! even you cannot save me. I should push you away; I am ruined, Tatyana, I am ruined past all help."

Tatyana's brow twitched. Her pale face darkened.

"Since you say yourself this passion is unalterable, it only remains for me to give you back your word. I will ask you to leave me. I want to collect myself a little.... Leave me alone... spare my pride."

Uttering these words, Tatyana hurriedly withdrew into an inner room.

He was free now, free to go to Irina! That day Tatyana and her aunt left Baden. There were no barriers between him and his soul's desire. He hastened to Irina's side. He found her turning over some lace in a cardboard box.

"Don't be angry with me, dear one," she said, "for attending to this trash at the present moment. I am obliged to go to a ball at a certain lady's. These bits of finery have been sent me, and I must choose to-day. Ah! I am awfully wretched," she cried suddenly, and she laid her face down on the edge of the box. Tears began falling from her eyes... she turned away; the tears might spoil the lace.

He was uneasy at her tears and tried to comfort her, and she, putting her arms around him, cried to him that she would do whatever he wished. They should be free people. "Let us be free," she said. "The day is ours. A lifetime is ours."

Litvinov spent the next twenty-four hours in making all arrangements for their flight together. He raised as much money as he could, even stooping to try his luck at roulette to increase his hoard. The appointed moment of their departure approached. As he waited impatiently in the hotel hall, a letter was brought him. It was a letter from Irina in French.

"My dear one," she wrote, "I cannot run away with you. I have not the strength to do it. I cannot leave this life; I see the poison has gone too deeply into me. Oh, my dear one, think me a weak, worthless woman, despise, but don't abandon me, don't abandon your Irina.... To leave this life I have not the courage, but live it without you I cannot either. Come soon to me. I shall not have an instant's peace until I see you. Yours, yours, yours--I."

The blood beat like a sledgehammer in Litvinov's head, then slowly and painfully sank to his heart, and was chill as a stone. And so again, again deceit; no, worse than deceit--lying and baseness... and life shattered, everything torn up by its roots utterly, and the sole thing which he could cling to, the last prop, in fragments too. In Litvinov's soul rose, like sudden gusts of wind before a storm, momentary impulses of fury.

He determined to leave Baden at once. Getting a carriage, he took his box to the station. He was just taking his seat in the railway carriage.

"Grigory Mihalovitch... Grigory..." he heard a supplicating whisper behind him.

He started to see Irina standing on the platform, her eyes crying to him to come back--to come back.... He jumped into the carriage, and turning round, he motioned her to a place beside him. She understood him. There was still time. One step, one movement, and two lives made one for ever would have been hurried away into the uncertain distance.... While she wavered, a loud whistle sounded, and the train moved off.

_IV.--Love's Reward_

A year had passed--a year spent by Litvinov on his father's estate, a year of hard work, a year of devoting the knowledge he had acquired abroad to the betterment of the property. Another year, and his toil began to show its fruit. A third year was beginning. An uncle, who happened to be a cousin of Kapitolina Markovna, and had been recently staying with her, paid them a visit. He brought Litvinov a great deal of news about Tatyana. The next day, after his departure, Litvinov sent her a letter, the first since their separation.

He begged for permission to renew her acquaintance, at least by correspondence, and also desired to learn whether he must forever give up all idea of some day seeing her. Not without emotion he awaited the answer... the answer came at last. Tatyana responded cordially to his overture. "If you are disposed to pay us a visit," she finished up, "we hope you will come; you know the saying, 'even the sick are easier together than apart.'"