Part 19

To put the finishing touches to the new house and modest household arrangements, Sofya Nikolayevna called in the assistance of a widow whom she knew, who lived in a humble position at Ufa. This was Mme. Cheprunoff, a very simple and kind-hearted creature. She owned a little house in the suburbs, and a small but productive garden, which brought her in a trifle. She had other means of maintaining herself and her adored only child, a little one-eyed boy called Andrusha: she hawked about small wares of different kinds, and even sold cakes in the market. But her chief source of income was the sale of Bokhara muslin, which she went to Orenburg every year to buy. Sofya Nikolayevna was related through her mother to this woman; but she had the weakness to conceal the relationship, though every one in the town knew it. Mme. Cheprunoff was devoted to her brilliant and distinguished kinswoman. She used to pay secret visits to Sofya Nikolayevna during the time when she was persecuted and humiliated by her stepmother; and Sofya Nikolayevna, when her time of triumph and influence came, became the avowed benefactress of Mme. Cheprunoff. When they were alone together, Sofya Nikolayevna lavished caresses upon her unselfish and devoted kinswoman; but, when other people were present, the one was the great lady and the other the poor _protegee_ who sold cakes in the streets. This treatment did not offend Mme. Cheprunoff: on the contrary, she insisted on it. She loved and admired her beautiful cousin with all her heart, and looked on her as a superior being, and would never have forgiven herself if she had thrown a shadow on the brilliant position of Sofya Nikolayevna. The secret was revealed, as it had to be, to Alexyei Stepanitch; and he, in spite of the ancient lineage which his sisters were always dinning into his ears, received this humble friend as his wife's worthy kinswoman, and treated her with affection and respect all his life; he even tried to kiss the work-worn hand of the cake-seller, but she would never allow it. He was only prevented by his wife's earnest entreaties from speaking of this relationship in his own family and in the circle of their acquaintance. This conduct earned him the love of the simple-minded woman; and whenever there were differences in the household in later years, she was his ardent champion and defender. She knew all the shops and was a great hand at a bargain; and so, with her help, Sofya Nikolayevna did her furnishing quickly and well.

When the young Bagroffs bought a house and started housekeeping by themselves, there was much talk and gossip in the town; and at first many exaggerations and inventions were current. But Alexyei Stepanitch had spoken the truth: the real reason came out before long. This was due chiefly to Nikolai, who boasted among his friends that he had ousted the pettish young lady, and took the opportunity to give a lively description of her character. So the talk and gossip soon quieted down.

Husband and wife had at last a house entirely to themselves. In the morning, Alexyei Stepanitch drove down to his work at the law-courts, dropping his wife at her father's house; and on his return he spent some time every day with his father-in-law, before taking his wife home. A modest dinner awaited them there. To sit alone together, at a meal of their own ordering, in their own house, was a charming sensation for a time; but nothing is a novelty for long, and this charm could not last for ever. In spite of her bad health and small means, Sofya Nikolayevna's clever hands made her little house as dainty as a toy. Taste and care are a substitute for money; and many of their visitors thought the furnishing splendid. The hardest problem was to arrange about their servants. Sofya Nikolayevna had brought two servants as part of her portion--a man named Theodore and a black-eyed maid called Parasha; these two were now married to one another; and at the same time Annushka, a young laundress belonging to Sofya Nikolayevna, was married to Yephrem Yevseitch, a young servant who had been brought from Bagrovo. This man was honest and good-natured and much attached to his young mistress, which cannot be said of the other servants. She returned his affection, and he well deserved it: he was one in a thousand, and his devotion to her was proved by his whole life.

Yevseitch (as he was always called in the family) became later the attendant of her eldest son,[48] and watched over him like a father. I knew this worthy man well. Fifteen years ago I saw him for the last time; he was then blind and spending his last days in the Government of Penza on an estate belonging to one of the grandsons of Stepan Mihailovitch. I spent a whole month there in the summer; and every morning I went to fish in a pool where the stream of Kakarma falls into the river Niza. The cottage where Yevseitch was living stood right on the bank of this pool; and every day as I came up I saw him leaning against the angle of the cottage and facing the rising sun. He was bent and decrepit, and his hair had turned perfectly white; pressing a long staff to his breast, he leaned upon it with the knotted fingers of both hands, and turned his sightless eyes towards the sun's rays. Though he could not see the light, he could feel its warmth, so pleasant in the fresh morning air, and his face expressed both pleasure and sadness. His ear was so quick that he heard my step at some distance, and he always hailed me as an old fisherman might hail a schoolboy, though I was then myself over fifty years old. "Ah, it's you, my little falcon!"--he used to call me this when I was a child--"you're late this morning! God send you a full basket!" He died two years later in the arms of his son and daughter and his wife, who survived him several years.

[48] _I.e._ the Author.

Meantime life at Ufa took a very regular and unvarying course. Owing to her state of health and spirits, Sofya Nikolayevna paid few visits and only to intimate friends, whose small number was made smaller by the absence of the Chichagoffs. Autumn was nearly over before those dearest of friends returned from the country with Mme. Myortvavo. The disordered nerves and consequent low spirits of his wife were at first a source of great uneasiness to Alexyei Stepanitch. He was completely puzzled: he had never in his life met people who were ill without anything definite the matter, or sad with no cause for sadness; he could make nothing of illness due to some inexplicable grief, or grief due to some imaginary or imperceptible illness. But he saw that there was no serious danger, and his anxiety calmed down by degrees. He was convinced that it was all the effect of imagination, which had always been his way of accounting for his wife's moods of excitement and distress, whenever he found it impossible to arrive at any reason within his comprehension. If he ceased to be uneasy, he began to be rather bored at times; and this was very natural, in spite of his love for his wife and pity for her constant suffering. To listen for whole hours every day to constant complaints about her condition, which was not after all so very exceptional; to hear gloomy presentiments, or even prophecies, of the fatal results which were sure to follow (and Sofya Nikolayevna, thanks to her reading of medical works, was extraordinarily ingenious in discovering ominous symptoms); to endure her reproaches and constant demands for those trifling services which a man can seldom render--all this was wearisome enough. Sofya Nikolayevna saw what he felt, and was deeply hurt. If she had found him in general incapable of deep feeling and strong passion, she would have reconciled herself sooner to her situation. She used often to say herself, "A man cannot give you what he has not got"; and she would have recognised the truth of the saying and submitted to her fate. But the misfortune was that she remembered the depth and ardour of her husband's passion in the days of his courtship, and believed that he might have continued to love her in the same fashion, had not something occurred to cool his feelings. This unlucky notion by degrees took hold of her imagination, and her ingenuity soon discovered many reasons to account for this coolness and much evidence of its truth. As to reasons--there was the hostile influence of his family, her own ill-health, and, worst of all, her loss of beauty; for her looking-glass forced upon her the sad change in her appearance. Her proofs were these--that her husband was not disquieted by her danger, took insufficient notice of her condition, did not try to cheer and interest her, and, above all, found more pleasure in talking to other women. And then a passion, which hitherto had lurked unrecognised, the torturing passion of jealousy, as keen-sighted as it is blind, flashed up like gunpowder in her heart. Every day there were scenes--tears and reproaches, quarrels and reconciliations. And all the time Alexyei Stepanitch was entirely innocent. To the insinuations of his sisters he paid no attention at all; to his father's opinion he attached great importance, and that was so favourable to Sofya Nikolayevna that she had even risen in her husband's eyes in consequence. He was sincerely, if not deeply, distressed about her sufferings; and her loss of beauty he regarded as temporary, and looked forward with pleasure to the time when his young wife would get back her good looks. Though the sight of her suffering distressed him, he could not sympathise with all her presentiments and prognostications which he believed to be quite imaginary. He was incapable, as most men would be, of paying her the sort of attention she expected. It was really a ticklish business to administer consolation to Sofya Nikolayevna in her present condition: you were quite likely to put your foot in it and make matters worse; it required much tact and dexterity, and these were qualities which her husband did not possess. If he found more pleasure in talking to other women, it was probably because he was not afraid that some casual remark might cause annoyance and irritation.

But Sofya Nikolayevna could not look at the matter in this light. Her view of it was dictated by her nature, whose fine qualities were apt to run to extremes. But what was to be done, if the nerves of one were tough and strong and those of the other sensitive and morbid, if hers were jarred by what had no effect upon his? The Chichagoffs alone understood the causes of this uncomfortable situation; and, though they received no confidences from either husband or wife, they took a warm interest in both and did much to calm Sofya Nikolayevna's excitement by their friendship, their frequent visits, and their rational and sensible conversation. Both husband and wife owed much to them at this period.

So things went on till the time that Sofya Nikolayevna became a mother. Though she was often troubled in mind, her health improved during the last two months, and she was safely delivered of a daughter. She herself, and her husband still more, would have preferred a son; but, when the mother pressed the child to her heart, she thought no more of any distinction between boy and girl. A passion of maternal love filled her heart and mind and whole being. Alexyei Stepanitch thanked God for his wife's safety, rejoiced at her relief, and soon reconciled himself to the fact that his child was a girl.

But at Bagrovo it was quite another story! Stepan Mihailovitch was so confident that he was to have a grandson to carry on the line of the Bagroffs, that he would not believe at first in the birth of a grand-daughter. When at last he read through his son's letter with his own eyes and was convinced that there was no doubt about it, he was seriously annoyed. He put off the entertainment planned for his labourers, and refused to write himself to the parents; he would only send a message of congratulation to the young mother, with instructions that the infant was to be christened Praskovya, in compliment to his cousin and favourite, Praskovya Ivanovna Kurolyessova. His vexation over this disappointment was a touching and amusing sight. Even his womankind derived a little secret amusement from it. His good sense told him that he had no business to be angry with any one, but for a few days he could not control his feelings--so hard was it for him to give up the hope, or rather the certainty, that a grandson would be born, to continue the famous line of Shimon. In the expectation of the happy news, he had kept his family tree on his bed, ready any day to enter his grandson's name; but now he ordered this document to be hidden out of sight. He would not allow his daughter Aksinya to travel to Ufa in order to stand godmother to the babe; he said impatiently, "Take that journey for a girl's christening? Nonsense! If she brings a girl every year, you would have travelling enough!" Time did its work, however, and the frown, never a formidable frown this time, vanished from the brow of Stepan Mihailovitch, as he consoled himself with the thought that he might have a grandson before a year was out. Then he wrote a kind and playful letter to his daughter-in-law, pretending to scold her for her mistake and bidding her present him with a grandson within a twelvemonth.

Sofya Nikolayevna was so entirely absorbed by the revelation of maternity and by devotion to her child, that she did not even notice the signs of the old man's displeasure, and was quite unaffected by Aksinya's absence from the christening. It proved difficult to keep her in bed for nine days after her confinement. She felt so well and strong that she could have danced on the fourth day. But she had no wish to dance; she wanted to be on her feet day and night, attending to her little Parasha. The infant was feeble and sickly; the mother's constant distress of body and mind had probably affected the child. The doctor would not allow her to nurse the child herself. Andrei Avenarius was the name of this doctor; he was a very clever, cultivated, and amiable man, an intimate friend of the young people and a daily visitor at their house. As soon as possible Sofya Nikolayevna took her baby to her father's house, hoping that it would please the invalid to see this mite, and that he would find in it a resemblance to his first wife. This resemblance was probably imaginary; for, in my opinion, it is impossible for an infant to be like a grown-up person; but Sofya Nikolayevna never failed to assert that her first child was the very image of its grandmother. Old M. Zubin was approaching the end of his earthly career; both body and mind were breaking fast. He looked at the baby with little interest, and had hardly strength to sign it with the Cross. All he said was, "I congratulate you, Sonitchka." Sofya Nikolayevna was distressed by her father's critical condition--it was more than a month since she had seen him--and also by his indifference to her little angel, Parasha.

But soon the young mother forgot all the world around her, as she hung over her daughter's cradle. All other interests and attachments grew pale in comparison, and she surrendered herself with a kind of frenzy to this new sensation. No hands but hers might touch the child. She handed it herself to the foster-mother and held it at the breast, and it was pain to her to watch it drawing life, not from its mother, but from a stranger. It is hard to believe, but it is true, and Sofya Nikolayevna admitted it herself later, that, if the child sucked too long, she used to take it away before it was satisfied, and rock it herself in her arms or in the cradle, and sing it to sleep. She saw nothing of her friends, not even of her dear Mme. Chichagoff. Naturally they all thought her eccentric or absurd and her chief intimates were vexed by her conduct. She paid a hasty visit every day to her father, and returned every day with fear in her heart that she would find the child ill. She left her husband perfectly free to spend his time as he liked. For some days he stopped at home; but his wife never stirred from the cradle and took no notice of him, except to turn him out of the little nursery, because she feared that twice-breathed air might hurt the baby. After this, he began to go out alone, till at last he went to some party every day; and he began to play cards to relieve his boredom. The Ufa ladies were amused at the sight of the deserted husband, and some of them flirted with him, saying that it was a charity to console the widower, and that Sofya Nikolayevna would thank them for it when she recovered from her maternal passion and reappeared in society. Sofya Nikolayevna did not hear of these good Samaritans till later; when she did, she was vexed. Mme. Cheprunoff, who came often to the house, watched Sofya Nikolayevna with astonishment, pity, and displeasure. She was a tender mother herself to her little boy with the one eye, but this devotion to one object and disregard of everything else seemed to her to border on insanity. With groans and sighs she struck her fists against her own body--this was a regular trick of hers--and said that such love was a mortal sin which God would punish. Sofya Nikolayevna resented this so much that she kept Mme. Cheprunoff out of the nursery in future. No one but Dr. Avenarius was admitted there, and he came pretty often. The mother was constantly discovering symptoms of different diseases in the child; for these she began by consulting Buchan's _Domestic Medicine_, and then, when that did not answer, she called in Avenarius. He found it impossible to argue her out of her beliefs: all he could do was to prescribe harmless medicines. Yet the child was really feeble, and at times he was obliged to prescribe for it in real earnest.

It is difficult to say what would have been the upshot of all this; but, by the inscrutable designs of Providence, a thunderbolt burst over the head of Sofya Nikolayevna: her adored child died suddenly. The cause of death was uncertain: it may have been too much care, or too much medicine, or too feeble a constitution; at any rate, the child succumbed, when four months old, to a very slight attack of a common childish ailment. Sofya Nikolayevna was sitting by the cradle when she saw the infant start and a spasm pass over the little face; she caught it up and found that it was dead.

Sofya Nikolayevna must have had a marvellous constitution to support this blow. For some days she knew no one and the doctors feared for her reason; there were three of them, Avenarius, Zanden, and Klauss; all three were much attached to their patient, and one of them was always with her. But, by God's blessing and thanks to her youth and strength, that terrible time passed by. The unhappy mother recovered her senses, and her love for her husband, whose own distress was great, asserted itself for the time and saved her. On the fourth day she became conscious of her surroundings; she recognised Alexyei Stepanitch, so changed by grief that he was hard to recognise, and her bosom friend, Mme. Chichagoff; a terrible cry burst from her lips and a healing flood of tears gushed from the eyes which had been dry till then. She silently embraced her husband and sobbed for long on his breast, while he sobbed himself like a child. The danger of insanity was past, but the exhaustion of her bodily strength was still alarming. For four days and nights she had neither eaten nor drunk, and now she could swallow no food nor medicine nor even water. Her condition was so critical that the doctors did not oppose her wish to make her confession and receive the sacraments. The performance of this Christian duty was beneficial to the patient: she slept for the first time, and, when she woke after two hours looking bright and happy, she told her husband that she had seen in her sleep a vision of Our Lady of Iberia, exactly as she was represented on the _ikon_ of their parish church; and she believed that, if she could put her lips to this _ikon_, the Mother of God would surely have mercy on her. The image was brought from the church, and the priest read the service for the Visitation of the Sick. When the choir sang, "O mighty Mother of God, look down in mercy on my sore bodily suffering!"--all present fell on their knees and repeated the words of the prayer. Alexyei Stepanitch sobbed aloud; and the sufferer too shed tears throughout the service and pressed her lips to the image. When it was over, she felt so much relief that she was able to drink some water; and from that time she began to take food and medicine. Her two dear friends, Mme. Chichagoff and Mme. Cheprunoff, were with her constantly; she was soon pronounced out of danger, and her husband's troubled heart had rest. The doctors set to work with fresh zeal to restore her strength, and their great anxiety was in a way dangerous to their patient; for one of them found traces of consumption, another of _marasmus_, and the third was apprehensive of an aneurysm. But fortunately they were unanimous on one point: the patient should go at once to the country, to enjoy pure air and, preferably, forest air, and take a course of _koumiss_. At the beginning of June it was not too late to drink mare's milk, as the grass on the steppes was still fresh and in full growth.

Stepan Mihailovitch took the news of his grand-daughter's death very coolly: he even said, "No reason to tear one's hair over _that_! There will be plenty more girls." But when he heard later of the dangerous illness of Sofya Nikolayevna, the old man was much disturbed. When a third message came, that she was out of immediate danger but very ill, and that the doctors were baffled and prescribed a course of _koumiss_, he was exceedingly angry with the doctors: "Those bunglers murder our bodies," he said, "and defile our souls by making us swallow the drink of heathens. If a Russian is forbidden by his Church to eat horseflesh, then he has no business to drink the milk of the unclean animal." Then he added with a heavy sigh and a gesture of disgust: "I don't like it at all: her life may perhaps be saved, but she will never be right again, and there will be no children." Stepan Mihailovitch was deeply grieved and remained for a long time in a state of depression.