Chapter 7

Marfa Timofeevna was sitting in her room, surrounded by her court. This consisted of five beings, almost equally dear to her heart--an educated bullfinch, to which she had taken an affection because it could no longer whistle or draw water, and which was afflicted with a swollen neck; a quiet and exceedingly timid little dog, called Roska; a bad-tempered cat, named Matros; a dark-complexioned, lively little girl of nine, with very large eyes and a sharp nose, whose name was Shurochka[A]; and an elderly lady of about fifty-five, who wore a white cap and a short, cinnamon-colored _katsaveika_[B] over a dark gown, and whose name was Nastasia Carpovna Ogarkof.

[Footnote A: One of the many diminutives of Alexandrina.]

[Footnote B: A kind of jacket worn by women.]

Shurochka was a fatherless and motherless girl, whose relations belonged to the lowest class of the bourgeoisie. Marfa Timofeevna had adopted her, as well as Roska, out of pity. She had found both the dog and the girl out in the streets. Both of them were thin and cold; the autumn rain had drenched them both. No one ever claimed Roska, and as to Shurochka, she was even gladly given up to Marfa Timofeevna by her uncle, a drunken shoemaker, who never had enough to eat himself, and could still less provide food for his niece, whom he used to hit over the head with his last.

As to Nastasia Carpovna, Marfa Timofeevna had made acquaintance with her on a pilgrimage, in a monastery. She went up to that old lady in church one day,--Nastasia Carpovna had pleased Marfa Timofeevna by praying as the latter lady said, "in very good taste"--began to talk to her, and invited her home to a cup of tea. From that day she parted with her no more. Nastasia Carpovna, whose father had belonged to the class of poor gentry, was a widow without children. She was a woman of a very sweet and happy disposition; she had a round head, grey hair, and soft, white hands. Her face also was soft, and her features, including a somewhat comical snub nose, were heavy, but pleasant. She worshipped Marfa Timofeevna, who loved her dearly, although she teased her greatly about her susceptible heart. Nastasia Carpovna had a weakness for all young men, and never could help blushing like a girl at the most innocent joke. Her whole property consisted of twelve hundred paper roubles.[A] She lived at Marfa Timofeevna's expense, but on a footing of perfect equality with her. Marfa Timofeevna could not have endured any thing like servility.

[Footnote A: About _£50_.]

"Ah, Fedia!" she began, as soon as she saw him

"You didn't see my family last night. Please to admire them now; we are all met together for tea. This is our second, our feast-day tea. You may embrace us all. Only Shurochka wouldn't let you, and the cat would scratch you. Is it to-day you go?"

"Yes," said Lavretsky, sitting down on a low chair. "I have just taken leave of Maria Dmitrievna. I saw Lizaveta Mikhailovna too."

"Call her Liza, my dear. Why should she be Mikhailovna for you? But do sit still, or you will break Shurochka's chair."

"She was on her way to church," continued Lavretsky. "Is she seriously inclined?"

"Yes, Fedia, very much so. More than you or I, Fedia."

"And do you mean to say you are not seriously inclined?" lisped Nastasia Carpovna. "If you have not gone to the early mass to-day, you will go to the later one."

"Not a bit of it. Thou shalt go alone. I've grown lazy, my mother," answered Marfa Timofeevna. "I am spoiling myself terribly with tea drinking."

She said _thou_ to Nastasia Carpovna, although she lived on a footing of equality with her--but it was not for nothing that she was a Pestof. Three Pestofs occur in the Sinodik[A] of Ivan the Terrible. Marfa Timofeevna was perfectly well aware of the fact.

[Footnote A: "_I.e._, in the list of the nobles of his time, in the sixteenth century.]

"Tell me, please," Lavretsky began again. "Maria Dmitrievna was talking to me just now about that--what's his name?--Panshine. What sort of a man is he?"

"Good Lord! what a chatter-box she is!" grumbled Marfa Timofeevna. "I've no doubt she has communicated to you as a secret that he hangs about here as a suitor. She might have been contented to 'Whisper about it with her _popovich_[A] But no, it seems that is not enough for her. And yet there is nothing settled so far, thank God! but she's always chattering."

[Footnote A: The priest's son. _i.e._, Gedeonovsky.]

"Why do you say 'Thank God?'" asked Lavretsky.

"Why, because this fine young man doesn't please me. And what is there in the matter to be delighted about, I should like to know?"

"Doesn't he please you?"

"No; he can't fascinate every one. It's enough for him that Nastasia Carpovna here is in love with him."

The poor widow was terribly disconcerted.

"How can you say so, Marfa Timofeevna? Do not you fear God?" she exclaimed, and a blush instantly suffused her face and neck.

"And certainly the rogue knows how to fascinate her," broke in Marfa Timofeevna. "He has given her a snuff-box. Fedia, ask her for a pinch of snuff. You will see what a splendid snuff-box it is. There is a hussar on horseback on the lid. You had much better not try to exculpate yourself, my mother."

Nastasia Carpovna could only wave her hands with a deprecatory air.

"Well, but about Liza?" asked Lavretsky. "Is he indifferent to her?"

"She seems to like him--and as to the rest, God knows. Another person's heart, you know, is a dark forest, and more especially a young girl's. Look at Shurochka there! Come and analyze her's. Why has she been hiding herself, but not going away, ever since you came in?"

Shurochka burst into a laugh she was unable to stifle, and ran out of the room. Lavretsky also rose from his seat.

"Yes," he said slowly; "one cannot fathom a girl's heart."

As he was going to take leave.

"Well; shall we see you soon?" asked Marfa Timofeevna.

"Perhaps, aunt. It's no great distance to where I'm going."

"Yes; you're going, no doubt, to Vasilievskoe. You won't live at Lavriki. Well, that's your affair. Only go and kneel down at your mother's grave, and your grandmother's, too, while you are there. You have picked up all kinds of wisdom abroad there, and perhaps, who can tell, they may feel, even in their graves, that you have come to visit them. And don't forget, Fedia, to have a service said for Glafira Petrovna, too. Here is a rouble for you. Take it, take it please; it is I who wish to have the service performed for her. I didn't love her while she lived, but it must be confessed that she was a girl of character. She was clever. And then she didn't hurt you. And now go, and God be with you--else I shall tire you."

And Marfa Timofeevna embraced her nephew.

"And Liza shall not marry Panshine; don't make yourself uneasy about that. He isn't the sort of man she deserves for a husband."

"But I am not in the least uneasy about it," remarked Lavretsky as he retired.

XVIII.

Four hours later he was on his way towards his home. His tarantass rolled swiftly along the soft cross-road. There had been no rain for a fortnight. The atmosphere was pervaded by a light fog of milky hue, which hid the distant forests from sight, while a smell or burning filled the air. A number of dusky clouds with blurred outlines stood out against a pale blue sky, and lingered, slowly drawn. A strongish wind swept by in an unbroken current, bearing no moisture with it, and not dispelling the great heat. His head leaning back on the cushions, his arms folded across his breast, Lavretsky gazed at the furrowed plains which opened fanwise before him, at the cytisus shrubs, at the crows and rooks which looked sideways at the passing carriage with dull suspicion, at the long ridges planted with mugwort, wormwood, and mountain ash. He gazed--and that vast level solitude, so fresh and so fertile, that expanse of verdure, and those sweeping slopes, the ravines studded with clumps of dwarfed oaks, the grey hamlets, the thinly-clad birch trees--all this Russian landscape, so-long by him unseen, filled his mind with feelings which were sweet, but at the same time almost sad, and gave rise to a certain heaviness of heart, but one which was more akin to a pleasure than to a pain. His thoughts wandered slowly past, their forms as dark and ill-defined as those of the clouds, which also seemed vaguely wandering there on high. He thought of his childhood, of his mother, how they brought him to her 011 her death-bed, and how, pressing his head to her breast, she began to croon over him, but looked up at Glafira Petrovna and became silent. He thought of his father, at first robust, brazen-voiced, grumbling at every thing--then blind, querulous, with white, uncared-for beard. He remembered how one day at dinner, when he had taken a little too much wine, the old man suddenly burst out laughing, and began to prate about his conquests, winking his blind eyes the while, and growing red in the face. He thought of Varvara Pavlovna--and his face contracted involuntarily, like that of a man who feels some sudden pain, and he gave his head an impatient toss. Then his thoughts rested on Liza. "There," he thought, "is a new life just beginning. A good creature! I wonder what will become of her. And she's pretty, too, with her pale, fresh face, her eyes and lips so serious, and that frank and guileless way she has of looking at you. It's a pity she seems a little enthusiastic. And her figure is good, and she moves about lightly, and she has a quiet voice. I like her best when she suddenly stands still, and listens attentively and gravely, then becomes contemplative and shakes her hair back. Yes, I agree, Panshine isn't worthy of her. Yet what harm is there in him? However, as to all that, why am I troubling my head about it? She will follow the same road that all others have to follow. I had better go to sleep." And Lavretsky closed his eyes.

He could not sleep, but he sank into a traveller's dreamy reverie. Just as before, pictures of by-gone days slowly rose and floated across his mind, blending with each other, and becoming confused with other scenes. Lavretsky began to think--heaven knows why--about Sir Robert Peel; then about French history; lastly, about the victory which he would have gained if he had been a general. The firing and the shouting rang in his ears. His head slipped on one side; he opened his eyes--the same fields stretched before him, the same level views met his eyes. The iron shoes of the outside horses gleamed brightly by turns athwart the waving dust, the driver's yellow[A] shirt swelled with the breeze. "Here I am, returning virtuously to my birth-place," suddenly thought Lavretsky, and he called out, "Get on there!" drew his cloak more closely around him, and pressed himself still nearer to the cushion. The tarantass gave a jerk. Lavretsky sat upright and opened his eyes wide. On the slope before him extended a small village. A little to the right was to be seen an old manor house of modest dimensions, its shutters closed, its portico awry. On one side stood a barn built of oak, small, but well preserved. The wide court-yard was entirely overgrown by nettles, as green and thick as hemp. This was Vasilievskoe.

[Footnote A: Yellow, with red pieces let in under the armpits.]

The driver turned aside to the gate, and stopped his horses. Lavretsky's servant rose from his seat, ready to jump down, and shouted "Halloo!" A hoarse, dull barking arose in reply, but no dog made its appearance. The lackey again got ready to descend, and again cried "Halloo!" The feeble barking was repeated, and directly afterwards a man, with snow-white hair, dressed in a nankeen caftan, ran into the yard from one of the comers. He looked at the tarantass, shielding his eyes from the sun, then suddenly struck both his hands upon his thighs, fidgeted about nervously for a moment, and finally ran to open the gates. The tarantass entered the court-yard, crushing the nettles under its wheels, and stopped before the portico. The white-headed old man, who was evidently of a very active turn, was already standing on the lowest step, his legs spread awkwardly apart. He unbuttoned the apron of the carriage, pulling up the leather with a jerk, and kissed his master's hand while assisting him to alight.

"Good day, good day, brother," said Lavretsky. "Your name is Anton, isn't it. So you're still alive?"

The old man bowed in silence, and then ran to fetch the keys. While he ran, the driver sat motionless, leaning sideways and looking at the closed door; and Lavretsky's man-servant remained in the picturesque attitude in which he found himself after springing clown to the ground, one of his arms resting on the box seat. The old man brought the keys and opened the door, lifting his elbows high the while, and needlessly wriggling his body--then he stood on one side, and again bowed down to his girdle.

"Here I am at home, actually returned!" thought Lavretsky, as he entered the little vestibule, while the shutters opened, one after another, with creak and rattle, and the light of day penetrated into the long-deserted rooms.

XIX.

The little house at which Lavretsky had arrived, and in which Glafira Petrovna had died two years before, had been built of solid pine timber in the preceding century. It looked very old, but it was good for another fifty years or more. Lavretsky walked through all the rooms, and, to the great disquiet of the faded old flies which clung to the cornices without moving, their backs covered with white dust, he had the windows thrown open everywhere. Since the death of Glafira Petrovna, no one had opened them. Every thing had remained precisely as it used to be in the house. In the drawing-room the little white sofas, with their thin legs, and their shining grey coverings, all worn and rumpled, vividly recalled to mind the times of Catharine. In that room also stood the famous arm-chair of the late proprietress, a chair with a high, straight back, in which, even in her old age, she used always to sit bolt upright. On the wall hung an old portrait of Fedor's great-grandfather, Andrei Lavretsky. His dark, sallow countenance could scarcely be distinguished against the cracked and darkened background. His small, malicious eyes looked out morosely from beneath the heavy, apparently swollen eyelids. His black hair, worn without powder, rose up stiff as a brush above his heavy, wrinkled forehead. From the corner of the portrait hung a dusky wreath of _immortelles_. "Glafira Petrovna deigned to weave it herself," observed Anthony. In the bed-room stood a narrow bedstead, with curtains of some striped material, extremely old, but of very good quality. On the bed lay a heap of faded cushions and a thin, quilted counterpane; and above the bolster hung a picture of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin in the Temple, the very picture which the old lady, when she lay dying, alone and forgotten, pressed for the last time with lips which were already beginning to grow cold. Near the window stood a toilet table, inlaid with different kinds of wood and ornamented with plates of copper, supporting a crooked mirror in a frame of which the gilding had turned black. In a line with the bed-room was the oratory, a little room with bare walls; in the corner stood a heavy case for holding sacred pictures, and on the floor lay the scrap of carpet, worn threadbare, and covered with droppings from wax candles, on which Glafira Petrovna used to prostrate herself when she prayed.

Anton went out with Lavretsky's servant to open the stable and coach-house doors. In his stead appeared an old woman, almost as old as himself, her hair covered by a handkerchief, which came down to her very eyebrows. Her head shook and her eyes seemed dim; but they wore, also, an expression of zealous obedience, habitual and implicit, and, at the same time, of a kind of respectful condolence. She kissed Lavretsky's hand, and then remained near the door, awaiting his orders. He could not remember what her name was, nor even whether he had ever seen her before. It turned out that her name was Apraxia. Some forty years previously, Glafira Petrovna had struck her off the list of the servants who lived in the house, and had ordered her to become a poultry-maid. She seldom spoke, seemed half idiotic, and always wore a servile look. Besides this old couple, and three paunchy little children in long shirts, Anton's great-grandchildren, there lived also in the seigniorial household an untaxable[A] moujik, who had only one arm. He cackled like a black-cock, and was fit for nothing. Of very little more use was the infirm old hound which had saluted Lavretsky's return by its barking. For ten whole years it had been fastened to a heavy chain, purchased by order of Glafira Petrovna, a burden under which it was now scarcely able to move.

[Footnote A: One who had not received the usual grant of land from the community, and was not subject to rates like the rest.]

Having examined the house, Lavretsky went out into the garden, and was well pleased with it. It was all overgrown with steppe grass, with dandelions, and with gooseberry and raspberry bushes; but there was plenty of shade in it, a number of old lime-trees growing there, of singularly large stature, with eccentrically ordered branches. They had been planted too close together, and a hundred years seemed to have elapsed since they were pruned. At the end of the garden was a small, clear lake, surrounded by a fringe of high, reddish-colored rushes. The traces of a human life that is past soon disappear. Glafira's manor-house had not yet grown wild, but it seemed to have become already immersed in that quiet slumber which all that is earthly sleeps, whenever it is not affected by the restlessness of humanity.

Lavretsky also went through the village. The women looked at him from the door-ways of their cottages, each resting her cheek upon her hand. The men bowed low from afar, the children ran Out of sight, the dogs barked away at their ease. At last he felt hungry, but he did not expect his cook and the other servants till the evening. The waggon bringing provisions from Lavriki had not yet arrived. It was necessary to have recourse to Anton. The old man immediately made his arrangements. He caught an ancient fowl, and killed and plucked it. Apraxia slowly squeezed and washed it, scrubbing it as if it had been linen for the wash, before putting it into the stewpan. When at last it was ready, Anton laid the table, placing beside the dish a three-footed plated salt-cellar, blackened with age, and a cut glass decanter, with a round glass stopper in its narrow neck. Then, in a kind of chant, he announced to Lavretsky that dinner was ready, and took his place behind his master's chair, a napkin wound around his right hand, and a kind of air of the past, like the odor of cypress-wood hanging about him. Lavretsky tasted the broth, and took the fowl out of it. The bird's skin was covered all over with round blisters, a thick tendon ran up each leg, and the flesh was as tough as wood, and had a flavor like that which pervades a laundry. After dinner Lavretsky said that he would take tea if--

"I will bring it in a moment," broke in the old man, and he kept his promise. A few pinches of tea were found rolled up in a scrap of red paper. Also a small, but very zealous and noisy little _samovar_[A] was discovered, and some sugar in minute pieces, which looked as if they had been all but melted away. Lavretsky drank his tea out of a large cup. From his earliest childhood he remembered this cup, on which playing cards were painted, and from which only visitors were allowed to drink; and now he drank from it, like a visitor.

[Footnote A: Urn.]

Towards the evening came the servants. Lavretsky did not like to sleep in his aunt's bed, so he had one made up for him in the dining-room. After putting out the candle, he lay for a long time looking around him, and thinking what were not joyous thoughts. He experienced the sensations which every one knows who has had to spend the night for the first time in a long uninhabited room. He fancied that the darkness which pressed in upon him from all sides could not accustom itself to the new tenant--that the very walls of the house were astonished at him. At last he sighed, pulled the counterpane well over him, and went to sleep. Anton remained on his legs long after every one else had gone to bed. For some time he spoke in a whisper to Apraxia, sighing low at intervals, and three times he crossed himself. The old servants had never expected that their master would settle down among them at Vasilievskoe, when he had such a fine estate, with a well-appointed manor-house close by. They did not suspect what was really the truth, that Lavriki was repugnant to its owner, that it aroused in his mind too painful recollections. After they had whispered to each other enough, Anton took a stick, and struck the watchman's board, which had long hung silently by the barn. Then he lay down in the open yard, without troubling himself about any covering for his white head. The May night was calm and soothing, and the old man slept soundly.

XX.

The next day Lavretsky rose at a tolerably early hour, chatted with the _starosta_,[A] visited the rick-yard, and had the chain taken off the yard dog, which just barked a little, but did not even come out of its kennel. Then, returning home, he fell into a sort of quiet reverie, from which he did not emerge all day. "Here I am, then, at the very bottom of the river!"[B] he said to himself more than once. He sat near the window without stirring, and seemed to listen to the flow of the quiet life which surrounded him, to the rare sounds which came from the village solitude. Behind the nettles some one was singing with a thin, feeble voice; a gnat seemed to be piping a second to it The voice stopped, but the gnat still went on piping. Through the monotonous and obtrusive buzzing of the flies might be heard the humming of a large humble bee, which kept incessantly striking its head against the ceiling. A cock crowed in the street, hoarsely protracting its final note, a cart rattled past, a gate creaked in the village. "What?" suddenly screeched a woman's voice. "Ah, young lady!" said Anton to a little girl of two years old whom he was carrying in his arms. "Bring the _kvass_ here," continued the same woman's voice. Then a death-like silence suddenly ensued.

[Footnote A: The head of the village.]

[Footnote B: A popular phrase, to express a life quiet as the depths of a river are.]