Chapter 2

Pánshin sang the second couplet with peculiar expression and force; the surging of the waves could be heard in the tempestuous accompaniment. After the words: "I suffer pain...." he heaved a slight sigh, dropped his eyes, and lowered his voice,--_morendo_. When he had finished, Liza praised the motive, Márya Dmítrievna said: "It is charming;"--while Gedeónovsky even shouted: "Ravishing! both poetry and harmony are equally ravishing!..." Lyénotchka, with childish adoration, gazed at the singer. In a word, the composition of the youthful dilettante pleased all present extremely; but outside of the door of the drawing-room, in the anteroom, stood an elderly man, who had just arrived, to whom, judging by the expression of his downcast face and the movement of his shoulders, Pánshin's romance, charming as it was, afforded no pleasure. After waiting a while, and whisking the dust from his boots with a coarse handkerchief, this man suddenly screwed up his eyes, pressed his lips together grimly, bent his back, which was already sufficiently bowed without that, and slowly entered the drawing-room.

"Ah! Christofór Feódoritch, good afternoon!"--Pánshin was the first of all to exclaim, and sprang hastily from his seat.--"I had no suspicion that you were here,--I could not, on any account, have made up my mind to sing my romance in your presence. I know that you do not care for frivolous music."

"I vas not listening," remarked the newcomer, in imperfect Russian, and having saluted all, he remained awkwardly standing in the middle of the room.

"Have you come, Monsieur Lemm,"--said Márya Dmítrievna,--"to give a music lesson to Liza?"

"No, not to Lisaféta Mikhaílovna, but to Eléna Mikhaílovna."

"Ah! Well,--very good. Lyénotchka, go upstairs with Monsieur Lemm."

The old man was on the point of following the little girl, but Pánshin stopped him.

"Do not go away after the lesson, Christofór Feódoritch,"--he said:--"Lizavéta Mikhaílovna and I will play a Beethoven sonata for four hands."

The old man muttered something, but Pánshin went on in German, pronouncing his words badly:

"Lizavéta Mikhaílovna has shown me the spiritual cantata which you presented to her--'tis a very fine thing! Please do not think that I am incapable of appreciating serious music,--quite the contrary: it is sometimes tiresome, but, on the other hand, it is very beneficial."

The old man crimsoned to his very ears, cast a sidelong glance at Liza, and hastily left the room.

Márya Dmítrievna requested Pánshin to repeat the romance; but he declared, that he did not wish to wound the ears of the learned German, and proposed to Liza that they should occupy themselves with the Beethoven sonata. Then Márya Dmítrievna sighed, and in her turn, proposed to Gedeónovsky that he should take a stroll in the garden with her.--"I wish,"--she said, "to talk and take counsel with you still further, over our poor Fédya." Gedeónovsky grinned, bowed, took up--with two fingers, his hat, and his gloves neatly laid on its brim, and withdrew, in company with Márya Dmítrievna. Pánshin and Liza were left alone in the room; she fetched the sonata, and opened it; both seated themselves, in silence, at the piano.--From above, the faint sounds of scales, played by Lyénotchka's uncertain little fingers, were wafted to them.

V

Christopher-Theodore-Gottlieb Lemm was born in the year 1786, in the kingdom of Saxony, in the town of Chemnitz, of poor musicians. His father played the French horn, his mother the harp; he himself, at the age of five, was already practising on three different instruments. At eight years of age he became an orphan, and at the age of ten he began to earn a bit of bread for himself by his art. For a long time he led a wandering life, played everywhere--in inns, at fairs, and at peasant weddings and at balls; at last, he got into an orchestra, and rising ever higher and higher, he attained to the post of director. He was rather a poor executant; but he possessed a thorough knowledge of music. At the age of twenty-eight he removed to Russia. He was imported by a great gentleman, who himself could not endure music, but maintained an orchestra as a matter of pride. Lemm lived seven years with him, in the capacity of musical conductor, and left him with empty hands; the gentleman was ruined, and wished to give him a note of hand, but afterward refused him even this,--in a word, did not pay him a farthing. People advised him to leave the country: but he was not willing to return home in poverty from Russia, from great Russia, that gold-mine of artists; he decided to remain, and try his luck. For the space of twenty years he did try his luck: he sojourned with various gentry, he lived in Moscow and in the capitals of various governments, he suffered and endured a great deal, he learned to know want, he floundered like a fish on the ice; but the idea of returning to his native land never abandoned him in the midst of all these calamities to which he was subjected; it alone upheld him. But it did not suit Fate to render him happy with this last and first joy: at the age of fifty, ill, prematurely infirm, he got stranded in the town of O * * * and there remained for good, having finally lost all hope of quitting the Russia which he detested, and managing, after a fashion, to support his scanty existence by giving lessons. Lemm's external appearance did not predispose one in his favour. He was small of stature, round-shouldered, with shoulder-blades which projected crookedly, and a hollow chest, with huge, flat feet, with pale-blue nails on the stiff, unbending fingers of his sinewy, red hands; he had a wrinkled face, sunken cheeks, and tightly-compressed lips, that he was incessantly moving as though chewing, which, added to his customary taciturnity, produced an almost malevolent impression; his grey hair hung in elf-locks over his low brow; his tiny, motionless eyes smouldered like coals which had just been extinguished; he walked heavily, swaying his clumsy body from side to side at every step. Some of his movements were suggestive of the awkward manner in which an owl in a cage plumes itself when it is conscious that it is being watched, though it itself hardly sees anything with its huge, yellow, timorously and dozily blinking eyes. Confirmed, inexorable grief had laid upon the poor musician its ineffaceable seal, had distorted and disfigured his already ill-favoured figure; but for any one who knew enough not to stop at first impressions, something unusual was visible in this half-wrecked being. A worshipper of Bach and Handel, an expert in his profession, gifted with a lively imagination, and with that audacity of thought which is accessible only to the German race, Lemm, in course of time--who knows?--might have entered the ranks of the great composers of his native land, if life had led him differently; but he had not been born under a fortunate star! He had written a great deal in his day--and he had not succeeded in seeing a single one of his compositions published; he had not understood how to set about the matter in the proper way, to cringe opportunely, to bustle at the right moment. Once, long, long ago, one of his admirers and friends, also a German and also poor, had published two of his sonatas at his own expense,--and the whole edition remained in the cellars of the musical shops; they had vanished dully, without leaving a trace, as though some one had flung them into the river by night. At last Lemm gave up in despair; moreover, his years were making themselves felt: he had begun to grow rigid, to stiffen, as his fingers stiffened also. Alone, with an aged cook, whom he had taken from the almshouse (he had never been married), he lived on in O * * *, in a tiny house, not far from the Kalítin residence; he walked a great deal, read the Bible and collections of Protestant psalms, and Shakespeare in Schlegel's translation. It was long since he had composed anything; but, evidently, Liza, his best pupil, understood how to arouse him: he had written for her the cantata to which Pánshin had alluded. He had taken the words for this cantata from the psalms; several verses he had composed himself; it was to be sung by two choruses,--the chorus of the happy, and the chorus of the unhappy; both became reconciled, in the end, and sang together: "O merciful God, have mercy upon us sinners, and purge out of us by fire all evil thoughts and earthly hopes!"--On the title-page, very carefully written, and even drawn, stood the following: "Only the Just are Right. A Spiritual Cantata. Composed and dedicated to Miss Elizavéta Kalítin, my beloved pupil, by her teacher, C. T. G. Lemm." The words: "Only the Just are Right," and "Elizavéta Kalítin," were surrounded by rays. Below was added: "For you alone,"--"Für Sie allein."--Therefore Lemm had crimsoned and had cast a sidelong glance at Liza; it pained him greatly when Pánshin spoke of his cantata in his presence.

VI

Pánshin struck the opening chords of the sonata loudly, and with decision (he was playing the second hand), but Liza did not begin her part. He stopped, and looked at her. Liza's eyes, fixed straight upon him, expressed displeasure; her lips were not smiling, her whole face was stern, almost sad.

"What is the matter with you?"--he inquired.

"Why did not you keep your word?" said she.--"I showed you Christofór Feódoritch's cantata on condition that you would not mention it to him."

"Pardon me, Lizavéta Mikhaílovna, it was a slip of the tongue."

"You have wounded him--and me also. Now he will not trust me any more."

"What would you have me do, Lizavéta Mikhaílovna! From my earliest childhood, I have never been able to endure the sight of a German: something simply impels me to stir him up."

"Why do you say that, Vladímir Nikoláitch! This German is a poor, solitary, broken man--and you feel no pity for him? You want to stir him up?"

Pánshin was disconcerted.

"You are right, Lizavéta Mikhaílovna,"--he said. "My eternal thoughtlessness is responsible for the whole thing. No, do not say a word; I know myself well. My thoughtlessness has done me many an ill turn. Thanks to it, I have won the reputation of an egoist."

Pánshin paused for a moment. No matter how he began a conversation, he habitually wound up by speaking of himself, and he did it in a charming, soft, confidential, almost involuntary way.

"And here in your house,"--he went on:--"your mother likes me, of course,--she is so kind; you ... however, I do not know your opinion of me; but your aunt, on the contrary, cannot bear me. I must have offended her, also, by some thoughtless, stupid remark. For she does not like me, does she?"

"No," said Liza, with some hesitation:--"you do not please her."

Pánshin swept his fingers swiftly over the keys; a barely perceptible smile flitted across his lips.

"Well, and you?"--he said:--"Do I seem an egoist to you also?"

"I know you very slightly,"--returned Liza:--"but I do not consider you an egoist; on the contrary, I ought to feel grateful to you...."

"I know, I know, what you mean to say,"--Pánshin interrupted her, and again ran his fingers over the keys:--"for the music, for the books which I bring you, for the bad drawings with which I decorate your album, and so forth and so on. I can do all that--and still be an egoist. I venture to think, that you are not bored in my company, and that you do not regard me as a bad man, but still you assume, that I--how in the world shall I express it?--would not spare my own father or friend for the sake of a jest."

"You are heedless and forgetful, like all worldly people,"--said Liza:--"that is all."

Pánshin frowned slightly.

"Listen," he said:--"let us not talk any more about me; let us play our sonata. One thing only I will ask of you,"--he said, as with his hand he smoothed out the leaves of the bound volume which stood on the music-rack:--"think what you will of me, call me an egoist even,--so be it! but do not call me a worldly man: that appellation is intolerable to me.... _Anch'io son pittore._ I also am an artist,--and I will immediately prove it to you in action. Let us begin."

"We will begin, if you please,"--said Liza.

The first adagio went quite successfully, although Pánshin made more than one mistake. He played his own compositions and those which he had practised very prettily, but he read music badly. On the other hand, the second part of the sonata--a rather brisk allegro--did not go at all: at the twentieth measure, Pánshin, who had got two measures behind, could hold out no longer, and pushed back his chair with a laugh.

"No!"--he exclaimed:--"I cannot play to-day; it is well that Lemm does not hear us: he would fall down in a swoon."

Liza rose, shut the piano, and turned to Pánshin.

"What shall we do now?"--she asked.

"I recognise you in that question! You cannot possibly sit with folded hands. Come, if you like, let us draw, before it has grown completely dark. Perhaps the other muse,--the muse of drawing ... what's her name? I've forgotten ... will be more gracious to me. Where is your album? Do you remember?--my landscape there is not finished."

Liza went into the next room for her album, and Pánshin, when he was left alone, pulled a batiste handkerchief from his pocket, polished his nails, and gazed somewhat askance at his hands. They were very handsome and white; on the thumb of the left hand he wore a spiral gold ring. Liza returned; Pánshin seated himself near the window, and opened the album.

"Aha!"--he exclaimed:--"I see that you have begun to copy my landscape--and that is fine. Very good! Only here--give me a pencil--the shadows are not put on thickly enough.... Look."

And Pánshin, with a bold sweep, prolonged several long strokes. He constantly drew one and the same landscape: in the foreground were large, dishevelled trees, in the distance, a meadow, and saw-toothed mountains on the horizon. Liza looked over his shoulder at his work.

"In drawing, and in life in general,"--said Pánshin, bending his head now to the right, now to the left:--"lightness and boldness are the principal thing."

At that moment, Lemm entered the room, and, with a curt inclination, was on the point of departing; but Pánshin flung aside the album and pencil, and barred his way.

"Whither are you going, my dear Christofór Feódoritch? Are not you going to stay and drink tea?"

"I must go home,"--said Lemm in a surly voice:--"my head aches."

"Come, what nonsense!--stay. You and I will have a dispute over Shakespeare."

"My head aches,"--repeated the old man.

"We tried to play a Beethoven sonata without you,"--went on Pánshin, amiably encircling his waist with his arm, and smiling brightly:--"but we couldn't make it go at all. Just imagine, I couldn't play two notes in succession correctly."

"You vould haf done better to sing your romantz,"--retorted Lemm, pushing aside Pánshin's arm, and left the room.

Liza ran after him. She overtook him on the steps.

"Christofór Feódoritch, listen,"--she said to him in German, as she accompanied him to the gate, across the close-cropped green grass of the yard:--"I am to blame toward you--forgive me."

Lemm made no reply.

"I showed your cantata to Vladímir Nikoláitch; I was convinced that he would appreciate it,--and it really did please him greatly."

Lemm halted.

"Zat is nozing,"--he said in Russian, and then added in his native tongue:--"but he cannot understand anything; how is it that you do not perceive that?--he is a dilettante--and that's all there is to it!"

"You are unjust to him,"--returned Liza:--"he understands everything, and can do nearly everything himself."

"Yes, everything is second-class, light-weight, hasty work. That pleases, and he pleases, and he is content with that--well, and bravo! But I am not angry; that cantata and I--we are old fools; I am somewhat ashamed, but that does not matter."

"Forgive me, Christofór Feódoritch,"--said Liza again.

"It does not mattair, it does not mattair," he repeated again in Russian:--"you are a goot girl ... but see yonder, some vun is coming to your house. Good-bye. You are a fery goot girl."

And Lemm, with hasty strides, betook himself toward the gate, through which was entering a gentleman with whom he was not acquainted, clad in a grey coat and a broad-brimmed straw hat. Courteously saluting him (he bowed to all newcomers in the town of O * * *; he turned away from his acquaintances on the street--that was the rule which he had laid down for himself), Lemm passed him, and disappeared behind the hedge. The stranger looked after him in amazement, and, exchanging a glance with Liza, advanced straight toward her.

VII

"You do not recognise me,"--he said, removing his hat,--"but I recognise you, although eight years have passed since I saw you last. You were a child then. I am Lavrétzky. Is your mother at home? Can I see her?"

"Mamma will be very glad,"--replied Liza:--"she has heard of your arrival."

"Your name is Elizavéta, I believe?"--said Lavrétzky, as he mounted the steps of the porch.

"Yes."

"I remember you well; you had a face, at that time, such as one does not forget; I used to bring you bonbons then."

Liza blushed and thought, "What a strange man he is!" Lavrétzky paused for a minute in the anteroom. Liza entered the drawing-room, where Pánshin's voice and laughter were resounding; he had imparted some gossip of the town to Márya Dmítrievna and Gedeónovsky, who had already returned from the garden, and was himself laughing loudly at what he had narrated. At the name of Lavrétzky, Márya Dmítrievna started in utter trepidation, turned pale, and advanced to meet him.

"How do you do, how do you do, my dear _cousin_!"--she exclaimed, in a drawling and almost tearful voice:--"how glad I am to see you!"

"How do you do, my kind cousin,"--returned Lavrétzky; and shook her proffered hand in a friendly way:--"how does the Lord show mercy on you?"

"Sit down, sit down, my dear Feódor Ivánitch. Akh, how delighted I am! Permit me, in the first place, to present to you my daughter Liza...."

"I have already introduced myself to Lizavéta Mikhaílovna,"--Lavrétzky interrupted her.

"Monsieur Pánshin.... Sergyéi Petróvitch Gedeónovsky.... But pray sit down! I look at you, and I simply cannot believe my eyes. How is your health?"

"As you see, I am blooming. And you, cousin,--I don't want to cast the evil eye on you--you have not grown thin during these eight years."

"Just think, what a long time it is since we saw each other,"--remarked Márya Dmítrievna, dreamily.--"Whence come you now? Where have you left ... that is, I meant to say"--she hastily caught herself up--"I meant to say, are you to be with us long?"

"I have just come from Berlin,"--returned Lavrétzky,--"and to-morrow I set out for my estate--probably to remain there a long time."

"Of course, you will live at Lavríki?"

"No, not at Lavríki, but I have a tiny village about twenty-five versts from here; I am going there."

"The village which you inherited from Glafíra Petróvna?"

"The same."

"Good gracious, Feódor Ivánitch! You have a splendid house at Lavríki!"

Lavrétzky scowled slightly.

"Yes ... but in that little estate there is a small wing; and, for the present, I need nothing more. That place is the most convenient for me just now."

Márya Dmítrievna again became so perturbed, that she even straightened herself up, and flung her hands apart. Pánshin came to her assistance, and entered into conversation with Lavrétzky. Márya Dmítrievna recovered her composure, leaned back in her chair, and only interjected a word from time to time; but, all the while, she gazed so compassionately at her visitor, she sighed so significantly, and shook her head so mournfully, that the latter, at last, could endure it no longer, and asked her, quite sharply: was she well?

"Thank God, yes,"--replied Márya Dmítrievna,--"why?"

"Because it seemed to me that you were not quite yourself."

Márya Dmítrievna assumed a dignified and somewhat offended aspect.--"If that's the way you take it,"--she said to herself,--"I don't care in the least; evidently, my good man, nothing affects thee any more than water does a goose; any one else would have pined away with grief, but it swells thee up more than ever." Márya Dmítrievna did not stand on ceremony with herself; she expressed herself more elegantly aloud.

As a matter of fact, Lavrétzky did not resemble a victim of fate. His rosy-cheeked, purely-Russian face, with its large, white brow, rather thick nose, and broad, regular lips, fairly overflowed with native health, with strong, durable force. He was magnificently built,--and his blond hair curled all over his head, like a young man's. Only in his eyes, which were blue and prominent and fixed, was there to be discerned something which was not revery, nor yet weariness, and his voice sounded rather too even.

In the meantime, Pánshin had continued to keep up the conversation. He turned it on the profits of sugar-refining, concerning which two French pamphlets had recently made their appearance, and with calm modesty undertook to set forth their contents, but without saying one word about them.

"Why, here's Fédya!" suddenly rang out Márfa Timoféevna's voice in the adjoining room, behind the half-closed door:--"Actually, Fédya!" And the old woman briskly entered the room. Before Lavrétzky could rise from his chair, she clasped him in her embrace.--"Come, show thyself, show thyself,"--she said, moving back from his face.--"Eh! What a splendid fellow thou art! Thou hast grown older, but hast not grown in the least less comely, really! But why art thou kissing my hands,--kiss me myself, if my wrinkled cheeks are not repulsive to thee. Can it be, that thou didst not ask after me: 'Well, tell me, is aunty alive?' Why, thou wert born into my arms, thou rogue! Well, never mind that; why shouldst thou have remembered me? Only, thou art a sensible fellow, to have come. Well, my mother,"--she added, addressing Márya Dmítrievna,--"hast thou given him any refreshments?"

"I want nothing,"--said Lavrétzky, hastily.

"Come, drink some tea, at least, my dear little father. O Lord my God! He has come, no one knows whence, and they don't give him a cup of tea! Go, Liza, and see about it, as quickly as possible. I remember that, as a little fellow, he was a dreadful glutton, and he must be fond of eating even now."

"My respects, Márfa Timoféevna,"--said Pánshin, approaching the angry old woman from one side, and bowing low.

"Excuse me, sir,"--retorted Márfa Timoféevna,--"I did not notice you for joy.--Thou hast grown to resemble thy mother, the darling,"--she went on, turning again to Lavrétzky:--"only, thy nose was and remains like thy father's. Well--and art thou to be long with us?"

"I am going away to-morrow, aunty."

"Whither?"

"Home, to Vasílievskoe."

"To-morrow?"

"Yes."