Chapter 2
"_Maman, maman_," exclaimed a pretty little girl of eleven, who came running into the room, "Vladimir Nikolaevich is coming here on horseback."
Maria Dmitrievna rose from her chair. Sergius Petrovich also got up and bowed.
"My respects to Elena Mikhailovna," he said; and, discreetly retiring to a corner, he betook himself to blowing his long straight nose.
"What a lovely horse he has!" continued the little girl. "He was at the garden gate just now, and he told me and Liza that he would come up to the front door."
The sound of hoofs was heard, and a well appointed cavalier, mounted on a handsome bay horse, rode up to the house, and stopped in front of the open window.
III.
"Good-evening, Maria Dmitrievna!" exclaimed the rider's clear and pleasant voice. "How do you like my new purchase?"
Maria Dmitrievna went to the window.
"Good-evening, Woldemar! Ah, what a splendid horse! From whom did you buy it?"
"From our remount-officer. He made me pay dear for it, the rascal."
"What is it's name?"
"Orlando. But that's a stupid name. I want to change it. _Eh bien, eh bien, mon garçon_. What a restless creature it is!"
The horse neighed, pawed the air, and tossed the foam from its nostrils.
"Come and stroke it, Lenochka; don't be afraid."
Lenochka stretched out her hand from the window, but Orlando suddenly reared and shied. But its rider, who took its proceedings very quietly, gripped the saddle firmly with his knees, laid his whip across the horse's neck, and forced it, in spite of its resistance, to return to the window, "_Prenez garde, prenez garde_," Maria Dmitrievna kept calling out.
"Now then, stroke him, Lenochka," repeated the horseman; "I don't mean to let him have his own way."
Lenochka stretched out her hand a second time, and timidly touched the quivering nostrils of Orlando, who champed his bit, and kept incessantly fidgeting.
"Bravo!" exclaimed Maria Dmitrievna; "but now get off, and come in."
The rider wheeled his horse sharply round, drove the spurs into its sides, rode down the street at a hand gallop, and turned into the court-yard. In another minute he had crossed the hall and entered the drawing-room, flourishing his whip in the air.
At the same moment there appeared on the threshold of another doorway a tall, well-made, dark-haired girl of nineteen--Maria Dmitrievna's elder daughter, Liza.
IV.
The young man whom we have just introduced to our readers was called Vladimir Nikolaevich Panshine. He occupied a post at St. Petersburg--one devoted to business of a special character--in the Ministry of the Interior. He had come to O. about certain affairs of a temporary nature, and was placed there at the disposal of the governor, General Zonnenberg, to whom he was distantly related.
Panshine's father, a retired cavalry officer,[A] who used to be well known among card-players, was a man of a worn face, with weak eyes, and a nervous contraction about the lips. Throughout his life he always revolved in a distinguished circle, frequenting the English Clubs[B] of both capitals, and being generally considered a man of ability and a pleasant companion, though not a person to be confidently depended upon. In spite of all his ability, he was almost always just on the verge of ruin, and he ultimately left but a small and embarrassed property to his only son. About that son's education, however, he had, after his own fashion, taken great pains.
[Footnote A: A _Shtabs-Rotmistr_, the second captain in a cavalry regiment.]
[Footnote B: Fashionable clubs having nothing English about them but their name.]
The young Vladimir Nikolaevich spoke excellent French, good English, and bad German. That is just as it should be. Properly brought-up people should of course be ashamed to speak German really well; but to throw out a German word now and then, and generally on facetious topics--that is allowable; "_c'est même très chic_," as the Petersburg Parisians say. Moreover, by the time Vladimir Nikolaevich was fifteen, he already knew how to enter any drawing-room whatsoever without becoming nervous, how to move about it in an agreeable manner, and how to take his leave exactly at the right moment.
The elder Panshine made a number of useful connections for his son; while shuffling the cards between two rubbers, or after a lucky "Great Schlemm,"[A] he never lost the opportunity of saying a word about his young "Volodka" to some important personage, a lover of games of skill. On his part, Vladimir Nikolaevich, during the period of his stay at the university, which he left with the rank of "effective student,"[B] made acquaintance with several young people of distinction, and gained access into the best houses. He was cordially received everywhere, for he was very good looking, easy in manner, amusing, always in good health, and ready for every thing. Where he was obliged, he was respectful; where he could, he was overbearing. Altogether, an excellent companion, _un charmant garçon_. The Promised Land lay before him. Panshine soon fathomed the secret of worldly wisdom, and succeeded in inspiring himself with a genuine respect for its laws. He knew how to invest trifles with a half-ironical importance, and to behave with the air of one who treats all serious matters as trifles. He danced admirably; he dressed like an Englishman. In a short time he had gained the reputation of being one of the pleasantest and most adroit young men in St. Petersburg.
[Footnote A: "A bumper."]
[Footnote B: A degree a little inferior to that of Bachelor of Arts.]
Panshine really was very adroit--not less so than his father had been. And besides this, he was endowed with no small talent; nothing was too difficult for him. He sang pleasantly, drew confidently, could write poetry, and acted remarkably well.
He was now only in his twenty eighth year, but he was already a Chamberlain, and he had arrived at a highly respectable rank in the service. He had thorough confidence in himself, in his intellect, and in his sagacity. He went onwards under full sail, boldly and cheerfully; the stream of his life flowed smoothly along. He was accustomed to please every one, old and young alike; and he imagined that he thoroughly understood his fellow-creatures, especially women--that he was intimately acquainted with all their ordinary weaknesses.
As one who was no stranger to Art, he felt within him a certain enthusiasm, a glow, a rapture, in consequence of which he claimed for himself various exemptions from ordinary rules. He led a somewhat irregular life, he made acquaintance with people who were not received into society, and in general he behaved in an unconventional and unceremonious manner. But in his heart of hearts he was cold and astute; and even in the midst of his most extravagant rioting, his keen hazel eye watched and took note of every thing. It was impossible for this daring and unconventional youth ever quite to forget himself, or to be thoroughly carried away. It should be mentioned to his credit, by the way, that he never boasted of his victories. To Maria Dmitrievna's house he had obtained access as soon as he arrived in O., and he soon made himself thoroughly at home in it. As to Maria Dmitrievna herself, she thought there was nobody in the world to be compared with him.
Panshine bowed in an engaging manner to all the occupants of the room; shook hands with Maria Dmitrievna and Elizaveta Mikhailovna, lightly tapped Gedeonovsky on the shoulder, and, turning on his heels, took Lenochka's head between his hands and kissed her on the forehead.
"Are not you afraid to ride such a vicious horse?" asked Maria Dmitrievna.
"I beg your pardon, it is perfectly quiet. No, but I will tell you what I really am afraid of. I am afraid of playing at preference with Sergius Petrovich. Yesterday, at the Bielenitsines', he won all the money I had with me."
Gedeonovsky laughed a thin and cringing laugh; he wanted to gain the good graces of the brilliant young official from St. Petersburg, the governor's favorite. In his conversations with Maria Dmitrievna, he frequently spoke of Panshine's remarkable faculties. "Why, really now, how can one help praising him?" he used to reason. "The young man is a success in the highest circles of society, and at the same time he does his work in the most perfect manner, and he isn't the least bit proud." And indeed, even at St. Petersburg, Panshine was looked upon as an efficient public servant; the work "burnt under his hands;" he spoke of it jestingly, as a man of the world should, who does not attach any special importance to his employment; but he was a "doer." Heads of departments like such subordinates; he himself never doubted that in time, supposing he really wished it, he would be a Minister.
"You are so good as to say that I won your money," said Gedeonovsky; "but who won fifteen roubles from me last week? And besides--"
"Ah, rogue, rogue!" interrupted Panshine, in a pleasant tone, but with an air of indifference bordering on contempt, and then, without paying him any further attention, he accosted Liza.
"I cannot get the overture to Oberon here," he began. "Madame Bielenitsine boasted that she had a complete collection of classical music; but in reality she has nothing but polkas and waltzes. However, I have already written to Moscow, and you shall have the overture in a week."
"By the way," he continued, "I wrote a new romance yesterday; the words are mine as well as the music. Would you like me to sing it to you? Madame Bielenitsine thought it very pretty, but her judgment is not worth much. I want to know your opinion of it. But, after all, I think I had better sing it by-and-by."
"Why by-and-by?" exclaimed Maria Dmitrievna, "why not now?"
"To hear is to obey," answered Panshine, with a sweet and serene smile, which came and went quickly; and then, having pushed a chair up to the piano, he sat down, struck a few chords, and began to sing the following romance, pronouncing the words very distinctly
Amid pale clouds, above the earth, The moon rides high, And o'er the sea a magic light Pours from the sky.
My Spirit's waves, as towards the moon, Towards thee, love, flow: Its waters stirred by thee alone In weal or woe.
My heart replete with love that grieves But yields no cry, I suffer--cold as yonder moon Thou passest by.
Panshine sang the second stanza with more than usual expression and feeling; in the stormy accompaniment might be heard the rolling of the waves. After the words, "I suffer!" he breathed a light sigh, and with downcast eyes let his voice die gradually away. When he had finished; Liza praised the air, Maria Dmitrievna said, "Charming!" and Gedeonovsky exclaimed, "Enchanting!--the words and the music are equally enchanting!" Lenochka kept her eyes fixed on the singer with childish reverence. In a word, the composition of the young _dilettante_ delighted all who were in the room. But outside the drawing-room door, in the vestibule, there stood, looking on the floor, an old man who had just come into the house, to whom, judging from the expression of his face and the movements of his shoulders, Panshine's romance, though really pretty, did not afford much pleasure. After waiting a little, and having dusted his boots with a coarse handkerchief, he suddenly squeezed up his eyes, morosely compressed his lips, gave his already curved back an extra bend, and slowly entered the drawing-room.
"Ah! Christophor Fedorovich, how do you do?" Panshine was the first to exclaim, as he jumped up quickly from his chair. "I didn't suspect you were there. I wouldn't for any thing have ventured to sing my romance before you. I know you are no admirer of the light style in music."
"I didn't hear it," said the new-comer, in imperfect Russian. Then, having bowed to all the party, he stood still in an awkward attitude in the middle of the room.
"I suppose, Monsieur Lemm," said Maria Dmitrievna, "you have come to give Liza a music lesson."
"No; not Lizaveta Mikhailovna, but Elena Miknailovna."
"Oh, indeed! very good. Lenochka, go up-stairs with Monsieur Lemm."
The old man was about to follow the little girl, when Panshine stopped him.
"Don't go away when the lesson is over, Christopher Fedorovich," he said. "Lizaveta Mikhailovna and I are going to play a duet--one of Beethoven's sonatas."
The old man muttered something to himself, but Panshine continued in German, pronouncing the words very badly--
"Lizaveta Mikhailovna has shown me the sacred cantata which you have dedicated to her--a very beautiful piece! I beg you will not suppose I am unable to appreciate serious music. Quite the reverse. It is sometimes tedious; but, on the other hand, it is extremely edifying."
The old man blushed to the ears, cast a side glance at Liza, and went hastily out of the room.
Maria Dmitrievna asked Panshine to repeat his romance; but he declared that he did not like to offend the ears of the scientific German, and proposed to Liza to begin Beethoven's sonata. On this, Maria Dmitrievna sighed, and, on her part, proposed a stroll in the garden to Gedeonovsky.
"I want to have a little more chat with you," she said, "about our poor Fedia, and to ask for your advice."
Gedeonovsky smiled and bowed, took up with two fingers his hat, on the brim of which his gloves were neatly laid out, and retired with Maria Dmitrievna.
Panshine and Eliza remained in the room. She fetched the sonata, and spread it out. Both sat down to the piano in silence. From up-stairs there came the feeble sound of scales, played by Lenochka's uncertain fingers.
* * * * *
_Note to p_. 36.
It is possible that M. Panshine may have been inspired by Heine's verses:--
Wie des Mondes Abbild zittert In den wilden Meereswogen, Und er selber still und sicher Wandelt an dem Himmelshogen.
Also wandelst du, Geliebte, Still und sicher, und es zittert Nur dein Abbild mir im Herzen, Weil mein eignes Herz erschüttert.
V.
Christoph Theodor Gottlieb Lemm was born in 1786, in the kingdom of Saxony, in the town of Chemnitz. His parents, who were very poor, were both of them musicians, his father playing the hautboy, his mother the harp. He himself, by the time he was five years old, was already practicing on three different instruments. At the age of eight, he was left an orphan, and at ten, he began to earn a living by his art. For a long time he led a wandering life, playing in all sorts of places--in taverns, at fairs, at peasants' marriages, and at balls. At last he gained access to an orchestra, and there, steadily rising higher and higher, he attained to the position of conductor. As a performer he had no great merit, but he understood music thoroughly. In his twenty-eighth year, he migrated to Russia. He was invited there by a great seigneur, who, although he could not abide music himself, maintained an orchestra from a love of display. In his house Lemm spent seven years as a musical director, and then left him with empty hands. The seigneur, who had squandered all his means, first offered Lemm a bill of exchange for the amount due to him; then refused to give him even that; and ultimately never paid him a single farthing. Lemm was advised to leave the country, but he did not like to go home penniless from Russia--from the great Russia, that golden land of artists. So be determined to remain and seek his fortune there.
During the course of ten years, the poor German continued to seek his fortune. He found various employers, he lived in Moscow, and in several county towns, he patiently suffered much, he made acquaintance with poverty, he struggled hard.[A] All this time, amidst all the troubles to which he was exposed, the idea of ultimately returning home never quitted him. It was the only thing that supported him. But fate did not choose to bless him with this supreme and final piece of good fortune.
[Footnote A: Literally, "like a fish out of ice:" as a fish, taken out of a river which has been frozen over, struggles on the ice.]
At fifty years of age, in bad health and prematurely decrepid, he happened to come to the town of O., and there he took up his permanent abode, managing somehow to obtain a poor livelihood by giving lessons. He had by this time entirely lost all hope of quilting the hated soil of Russia.
Lemm's outward appearance was not in his favor. He was short and high-shouldered, his shoulder-blades stuck out awry, his feet were large and flat, and his red hands, marked by swollen veins, had hard, stiff fingers, tipped with nails of a pale blue color. His face was covered with wrinkles, his cheeks were hollow, and he had pursed-up lips which he was always moving with a kind of chewing action--one which, joined with his habitual silence, gave him an almost malignant expression. His grey hair hung in tufts over a low forehead. His very small and immobile eyes glowed dully, like coals in which the flame has just been extinguished by water. He walked heavily, jerking his clumsy frame at every step. Some of his movements called to mind the awkward shuffling of an owl in a cage, when it feels that it is being stared at, but can scarcely see anything itself out of its large yellow eyes, blinking between sleep and fear. An ancient and inexorable misery had fixed its ineffaceable stamp on the poor musician, and had wrenched and distorted his figure--one which, even without that, would have had but little to recommend it; but in spite of all that, something good and honest, something out of the common run, revealed itself in that half-ruined being, to any one who was able to get over his first impressions.
A devoted admirer of Bach and Handel, thoroughly well up to his work, gifted with a lively imagination, and that audacity of idea which belongs only to the Teutonic race, Lemm might in time--who can tell?--have been reckoned among the great composers of his country, if only his life had been of a different nature. But he was not born under a lucky star. He had written much in his time, and yet he had never been fortunate enough to see any of his compositions published. He did not know how to set to work, how to cringe at the right moment, how to proffer a request at the fitting time. Once, it is true, a very long time ago, one of his friends and admirers, also a German, and also poor, published at his own expense two of Lemm's sonatas. But they remained untouched on the shelves of the music shops; silently they disappeared and left no trace behind, just as if they had been dropped into a river by night.
At last Lemm bade farewell to every thing Old age gained upon him, and he hardened, he grew stiff in mind, just as his fingers had stiffened. He had never married, and now he lived alone in O., in a little house not far from that of the Kalitines, looked after by an old woman-servant whom he had taken out of an alms-house. He walked a great deal, and he read the Bible, also a collection of Protestant hymns, and Shakspeare in Schlegel's translation. For a long time he had composed nothing; but apparently Liza, his best pupil, had been able to arouse him. It was for her that he had written the cantata to which Panshine alluded. The words of this cantata were borrowed by him from his collection of hymns, with the exception of a few verses which he composed himself. It was written for two choruses: one of the happy, one of the unhappy. At the end the two united and sang together, "Merciful Lord, have pity upon us, poof sinners, and keep us from all evil thoughts and worldly desires." On the title-page, very carefully and even artistically written, were the words, "Only the Righteous are in the Right. A Sacred Cantata. Composed, and dedicated to Elizaveta Kalitine, his dear pupil, by her teacher, C.T.G, Lemm." The words "Only the Righteous are in the Right." and "To Elizaveta Kalitine" were surrounded by a circle of rays. Underneath was written, "For you only. Für Sie allein." This was why Lemm grew red and looked askance at Liza; he felt greatly hurt when Panshine began to talk to him about his cantata.
IV.
Panshine struck the first chords of the sonata, in which he played the bass, loudly and with decision, but Liza did not begin her part. He stopped and looked at her--Liza's eyes, which were looking straight at him, expressed dissatisfaction; her lips did not smile, all her countenance was severe, almost sad.
"What is the matter?" he asked.
"Why have you not kept your word?" she said. "I showed you Christopher Fedorovich's cantata only on condition that you would not speak to him about it."
"I was wrong, Lizaveta Mikhailovna--I spoke without thinking."
"You have wounded him and me too. In future he will distrust me as well as others."
"What could I do, Lizaveta Mikhailovna? From my earliest youth I have never been able to see a German without feeling tempted to tease him."
"What are you saying, Vladimir Nikolaevich? This German is a poor, lonely, broken man; and you feel no pity for him! you feel tempted to tease him!"
Panshine seemed a little disconcerted.
"You are right, Lizaveta Mikhailovna," he said "The fault is entirely due to my perpetual thoughtlessness. No, do not contradict me. I know myself well. My thoughtlessness has done me no slight harm. It makes people suppose that I am an egotist."
Panshine made a brief pause. From whatever point he started a conversation, he generally ended by speaking about himself, and then his words seemed almost to escape from him involuntarily, so softly and pleasantly did he speak, and with such an air of sincerity.
"It is so, even in your house," he continued. "Your mamma, it is true, is most kind to me. She is so good. You--but no, I don't know what you think of me. But decidedly your aunt cannot abide me. I have vexed her by some thoughtless, stupid speech. It is true that she does not like me, is it not?"
"Yes," replied Liza, after a moment's hesitation. "You do not please her."
Panshine let his fingers run rapidly over the keys; a scarcely perceptible smile glided over his lips.
"Well, but you," he continued, "do you also think me an egotist?".
"I know so little about you," replied Liza; "but I should not call you an egotist. On the contrary, I ought to feel grateful to you--"
"I know, I know what you are going to say," interrupted Panshine, again running his fingers over the keys, "for the music, for the books, which I bring you, for the bad drawings with which I ornament your album, and so on, and so on. I may do all that, and yet be an egotist. I venture to think that I do not bore you, and that you do not think me a bad man; but yet you suppose that I--how shall I say it?--for the sake of an epigram would not spare my friend, my father him self."
"You are absent and forgetful, like all men of the world," said Liza, "that is all."
Panshine slightly frowned.
"Listen," he said; "don't let's talk any more about me; let us begin our sonata. Only there is one thing I will ask of you," he added, as he smoothed the sheets which lay on the music-desk with his hand; "think of me what you will, call me egotist even, I don't object to that; but don't call me a man of the world, that name is insufferable. _Anch'io sono pittore_. I too am an artist, though but a poor one, and that--namely, that I am a poor artist--I am going to prove to you on the spot. Let us begin."
"Very good, let us begin," said Liza.
The first adagio went off with tolerable success, although Panshine made several mistakes. What he had written himself, and what he had learnt by heart, he played very well, but he could not play at sight correctly. Accordingly the second part of the sonata--tolerably quick allegro--would not do at all. At the twentieth bar Panshine, who was a couple of bars behind, gave in, and pushed back his chair with a laugh.