Dead Souls, Page 33

  From time to time a neighbor would stop by, a retired lieutenant of the hussars, a thoroughly smoke-saturated pipe smoker, or the firebrand colonel, a master and lover of talking about everything. But this, too, began to bore him. Their conversation began to seem to him somehow superficial; lively, adroit behavior, slappings on the knee, and other such casualness began to seem much too direct and overt to him. He decided to break off all his acquaintances and even did it quite abruptly. Namely, when that representative of all firebrand colonels, he who was most pleasant in all superficial conversations about everything, Barbar Nikolaych Vishnepokromov, came calling precisely in order to talk his fill, touching on politics, and philosophy, and literature, and morality, and even the state of England's finances, he sent word that he was not at home, and at the same time was so imprudent as to appear in the window. The guest's and host's eyes met. One, of course, grumbled "Brute!" through his teeth, while the other also sent after him something like a swine. Thus ended their acquaintance. After that no one came to see him. Total solitude installed itself in the house. The master got permanently into his dressing gown, giving his body over to inaction and his mind—to pondering a big work about Russia. How this work was being pondered, the reader has already seen. The day came and went, monotonous and colorless. It cannot be said, however, that there were not moments when he seemed to awaken from his sleep. When the mail brought newspapers, new books, and magazines, and in the press he came across the familiar name of a former schoolmate, who had already succeeded in some prominent post of the government service, or made a modest contribution to science and world knowledge, a secret, quiet sadness would come to his heart, and a doleful, wordlessly sad, quiet complaint at his own inactivity would involuntarily escape him. Then his life seemed revolting and vile to him. Before him his past schooldays rose up with extraordinary force and suddenly Alexander Petrovich stood before him as if alive ... A flood of tears poured from his eyes, and his weeping continued for almost the whole day.

  What was the meaning of this weeping? Was his aching soul thereby revealing the doleful mystery of its illness—that the lofty inner man who was beginning to be built in him had had no time to form and gain strength; that, not tried from early years in the struggle with failure, he had never attained the lofty ability to rise and gain strength from obstacles and barriers; that, having melted like heated metal, the wealth of great feelings had not been subjected to a final tempering, and now, lacking resilience, his will was powerless; that an extraordinary mentor had died too soon, and there was no longer anyone in the whole world capable of raising and holding up those forces rocked by eternal vacillation and that feeble will lacking in resilience—who could cry out in a live and rousing voice—cry out to his soul the rousing word: forward!—which the Russian man everywhere, at every level of rank, title, and occupation, yearns for?

  Where is he who, in the native tongue of our Russian soul, could speak to us this all-powerful word: forward? who, knowing all the forces and qualities, and all the depths of our nature, could, by one magic gesture, point the Russian man towards a lofty life? With what words, with what love the grateful Russian man would repay him! But century follows century, half a million loafers, sluggards, and sloths lie in deep slumber, and rarely is a man born in Russia who is capable of uttering it, this all-powerful word.

  One circumstance, however, nearly roused Tentetnikov and nearly caused a turnabout in his character. Something resembling love occurred, but here, too, the matter somehow came to nothing. In the neighborhood, six miles from his estate, lived a general, who, as we have already seen, spoke not altogether favorably of Tentetnikov. The general lived like a general, was hospitable, liked his neighbors to come and pay their respects; he himself, naturally, paid no visits, spoke hoarsely, read books, and had a daughter, a strange, incomparable being, who could be regarded more as some fantastic vision than as a woman. It happens that a man sometimes sees such a thing in a dream, and afterwards he dwells on this dream all his life, reality is lost to him forever, and he is decidedly good for nothing anymore. Her name was Ulinka. Her upbringing had been somehow strange. She was brought up by an English governess who did not know a word of Russian. She had lost her mother while still a child. The father had no time. Anyway, loving his daughter to distraction, he would only have spoiled her. It is extraordinarily difficult to paint her portrait. This was something as alive as life itself. She was lovelier than any beauty; better than intelligent; trimmer and more ethereal than a classical woman. It was simply impossible to tell what country had set its stamp on her, because it was difficult to find such a profile and facial form anywhere, except perhaps on antique cameos. As a child brought up in freedom, everything in her was willful. Had anyone seen the sudden wrath all at once gather wrinkles on her beautiful brow, as she ardently disputed with her father, he would have thought she was a most capricious being. Yet she was wrathful only when she heard of some injustice or cruel act done to anyone. But how this wrath would suddenly vanish, if she saw misfortune overtake the one against whom she was wrathful, how she would suddenly throw him her purse, without reflecting on whether it was smart or stupid, or tear up her own dress for bandages if he were wounded! There was something impetuous in her. When she spoke, everything in her seemed to rush after her thought: the expression of her face, the expression of her speech, the movements of her hands, the very folds of her dress seemed to rush in the same direction, and it seemed as if she herself were about to fly off after her own words. Nothing in her was hidden. She would not have been afraid of displaying her thoughts before anyone, and no power could have forced her to be silent if she wished to speak. Her charming, peculiar gait, which belonged to her alone, was so dauntlessly free that everything inadvertently gave way to her. In her presence a bad man became somehow embarrassed and speechless, and a good one, even of the shyest sort, could get to talking with her as never with anyone in his life before, and—strange illusion!— from the first moments of the conversation it would seem to him that he had known her sometime and somewhere, that it had been in the days of some immemorial infancy, in his own home, on a gay evening, with joyful games amid a crowd of children, and after that for a long time he would remain somehow bored with sensible adulthood.

  Andrei Ivanovich Tentetnikov could by no means have said how it happened that from the very first day he felt as if he had known her forever. An inexplicable new feeling entered his soul. His dull life became momentarily radiant. The dressing gown was abandoned for a while. He did not linger so long in bed, Mikhailo did not stand for so long holding the washbasin. The windows got opened in the rooms, and the owner of the picturesque estate would spend a long time strolling along the shady, winding paths of his garden, standing for hours before the enchanting views in the distance.

  The general at first received Tentetnikov rather nicely and cordially; but they could not become completely close. Their conversations always ended with an argument and some unpleasant feeling on both sides. The general did not like to be contradicted or objected to, though at the same time he liked to talk even about things of which he had no knowledge. Tentetnikov, for his part, was also a ticklish man. However, a great deal was forgiven the father for the daughter's sake, and their peace held until some of the general's relatives came for a visit, the countess Boldyrev and the princess Yuzyakin—one a widow, the other an old maid, both erstwhile ladies-in-waiting, both chatterboxes, both gossips, of not entirely charming amiability, yet with important connections in Petersburg, and upon whom the general even fawned a bit. It seemed to Tentetnikov that since the very day of their arrival, the general had become somehow colder with him, scarcely noticed him, and treated him as a mute extra or a clerk employed for copying, the lowest sort. He called him now "brother," now "my dear fellow," and once even addressed him as "boy." Andrei Ivanovich exploded; the blood rushed to his head. Teeth clenched and heart contrary, he nevertheless had enough presence of mind to say in an unusually courteous and gentle voice, as spots o
f color came to his cheeks and everything seethed inside him:

  "I must thank you, General, for your good disposition. By your manner of address you invite me and summon me to the most intimate friendship, obliging me, too, to address you similarly. But allow me to observe that I am mindful of our difference in age, which utterly rules out such familiarity between us."

  The general was embarrassed. Collecting his words and thoughts, he began to say, albeit somewhat incoherently, that the familiarity had not been used in that sense, that it was sometimes permissible for an old man to address a young one in such fashion (he did not mention a word about his rank).

  Naturally, after that their acquaintance ceased, and love ended at its very beginning. Out went the light that had gleamed before him momentarily, and the gloom that followed became still gloomier. The sloth got into his dressing gown once again. Everything steered itself once again towards prostration and inaction. Nastiness and disorder came to the house. A broom stood for days on end in the middle of the room together with its sweepings. His trousers sometimes even stopped for a visit in the drawing room. On an elegant table in front of the sofa lay a pair of greasy suspenders, as a sort of treat for a guest, and so worthless and drowsy did his life become that not only did the house serfs stop respecting him, but even the barnyard chickens all but pecked him. He spent long hours impotently tracing doodles on paper—little houses, cottages, carts, troikas—or else writing "Dear Sir!" with an exclamation point in all sorts of hands and characters. And sometimes, all oblivious, the pen would trace of itself, without the master's knowledge, a little head with fine, sharp features, with light, combed-up tresses, falling from behind the comb in long, delicate curls, young bared arms, as if flying off somewhere—and with amazement the master saw emerging the portrait of her whose portrait no artist could paint. And he would feel still sadder after that, and, believing that there was no happiness on earth, would remain dull and unresponsive for the rest of the day Such were the circumstances of Andrei Ivanovich Tentetnikov. Suddenly one day, going up to the window in his usual way, with pipe and cup in hand, he noticed movement and a certain bustle in the yard. The scullion and the charwoman were running to open the gates, and in the gates horses appeared, exactly as they are sculpted or drawn on triumphal arches: a muzzle to the right, a muzzle to the left, a muzzle in the middle. Above them, on the box—a coachman and a lackey in a loose frock coat with a bandana tied around his waist. Behind them a gentleman in a peaked cap and an overcoat, wrapped in a rainbow-colored scarf. When the carriage wheeled around in front of the porch, it turned out to be nothing other than a light spring britzka. A gentleman of remarkably decent appearance jumped out onto the porch with the swiftness and adroitness of an almost military man.

  Andrei Ivanovich quailed. He took him to be an official from the government. It must be mentioned that in his youth he had been mixed up in a certain unreasonable affair. Some philosophers from the hussars, plus a former student and a ruined gambler, started a sort of philanthropic society, under the supreme leadership of an old crook—a mason, a cardsharper, a drunkard, and a most eloquent man. The society was set up with the purpose of bestowing solid happiness on all mankind from the banks of the Thames to Kamchatka. The cashbox required was enormous, the donations collected from magnanimous members were unbelievable. Where it all went, only the supreme leader knew. Tentetnikov had been drawn into it by two friends who belonged to the class of disgruntled men—good men, but who, from the frequent toasting of science, enlightenment, and progress, eventually became certified drunkards. Tentetnikov soon thought better of it and left this circle. But the society had already managed to get entangled in some other actions, even not entirely befitting a nobleman, so that later they also had to deal with the police . . . And so it was no wonder that, though he had left and broken all relations with the benefactor of mankind, Tentetnikov nevertheless could not remain at peace. His conscience was somewhat uneasy. Not without fear did he now watch the door opening.

  His fear, however, passed suddenly, as the visitor made his bows with unbelievable adroitness, keeping his head slightly inclined to one side in a respectful attitude. In brief but definite words he explained that he had long been traveling over Russia, urged both by necessity and by inquisitiveness; that our state abounds in remarkable objects, to say nothing of the beauty of places, the abundance of industries, and the diversity of soils; that he was attracted by the picturesque setting of his estate; that nevertheless, notwithstanding the picturesqueness of the setting, he would not have ventured to trouble him by his inopportune visit, if something had not happened to his britzka which called for a helping hand from blacksmiths and artisans; that for all that, nevertheless, even if nothing had happened to his britzka, he would have been unable to deny himself the pleasure of personally paying his respects.

  Having finished his speech, the visitor, with charming agreeableness, scraped with his foot, and, despite the plumpness of his body, straightaway made a little leap backwards with the lightness of a rubber ball.

  Andrei Ivanovich thought that this must be some inquisitive scholar and professor, who traveled over Russia with the purpose of collecting some sort of plants or even minerals. He expressed all possible readiness to be of assistance; offered his artisans, wheelwrights, and blacksmiths to repair the britzka; begged him to make himself at home; seated his courteous visitor in a big Voltaire armchair, and prepared himself to listen to him talk, doubtless on subjects of learning and natural science.

  The visitor, however, touched more upon events of the inner world. He started speaking about the adversities of fate; likened his life to a ship on the high seas, driven about by winds from every quarter; mentioned that he had had to change places and posts many times, that he had suffered much for the truth, that even his very life had more than once been in danger from enemies, and there was much else he said which let Tentetnikov see that his visitor was rather a practical man. In conclusion to it all he blew his nose into a white cambric handkerchief, so loudly that Andrei Ivanovich had never heard the like of it. Sometimes in an orchestra there is one rascally trumpet which, when it strikes up, seems to quack not in the orchestra but in one's own ear. Exactly the same noise resounded in the awakened rooms of the dozing house, and was immediately followed by the fragrance of eau de cologne, invisibly diffused by an adroit shake of the cambric handkerchief.