XXII
HE began to talk about music, about Liza, and again about music. He seemed to pronounce his words more slowly when he talked about Liza. Lavretsky directed the conversation to Lemm’s work and, half jokingly, suggested he would write a libretto for him.
‘Hm, a libretto!’ Lemm responded. ‘No, that’s not for me: I haven’t any longer got the vivacity or the play of imagination which are necessary for opera; I’ve already lost my powers now…. But if I could still do something, I’d be content with a romance; of course, I’d want the words to be good…’
He fell silent and sat motionless for a long while with his eyes raised to the sky.
‘For instance,’ he said eventually, ‘something on the lines of: “You, O stars, pure stars!…”‘
Lavretsky turned his head slightly and began looking at him.
‘You, O stars, pure stars,’ Lemm repeated, ‘you look down equally on the just and the unjust, but only the innocent at heart – or something of that kind – understand you, that is to say, no – love you. Besides, I’m not a poet, not likely! But something in that line, something exalted.’
Lemm pushed his hat back on to the nape of his neck; in the delicate shadows of the bright night his face seemed paler and younger.
‘And you also,’ he continued in a gradually dying voice, ‘you also know who loves, who is capable of loving, for you, pure stars, you alone can bring comfort…. No, that’s not what I mean at all! I’m not a poet,’ he declared, ‘but something in that line…’
‘I’m sorry that I’m also not a poet,’ Lavretsky remarked.
‘Empty dreams!’ rejoined Lemm and settled back into the corner of the carriage. He closed his eyes, as if preparing to go to sleep.
Several instants passed. Lavretsky pricked up his ears. ‘ “Stars, pure stars, love,” ‘ the old man was whispering.
‘“Love”,’ Lavretsky repeated to himself, becoming thoughtful, and there was a heaviness in his soul.
‘You have written beautiful music for “Fridolin”, Christopher Fyodorych,’ he said aloud. ‘But what do you feel – surely this Fridolin, after the count had led him to his wife, became her lover, didn’t he?’1
‘You think that’, Lemm said, ‘because experience has probably…’ He stopped suddenly and turned away in confusion. Lavretsky gave a forced laugh and also turned away, and began to gaze at the road.
The stars were already beginning to pale and the sky had grown grey by the time the carriage drove up to the porch of the little house in Vasilyevskoye. Lavretsky showed his guest to his room, returned to his study and sat down before the window. In the garden a nightingale was singing its final song before the dawn. Lavretsky remembered that a nightingale had sung in the Kalitins’ garden; he remembered also the quiet movement of Liza’s eyes when, at the first sounds of the nightingale’s song, they had turned towards the dark window. He began thinking about her, and his heart grew calm within him. ‘Pure girl,’ he murmured in a low voice; ‘pure stars,’ he added with a smile, and peacefully lay down to sleep.
But Lemm sat for a long time on his bed with a music workbook on his knees. It seemed that some improbably sweet melody was about to visit him: he was already seized by the fire, the excitement of it, he already felt the wearisome sweetness of its coming… but he could not quite grasp it…
‘Not a poet and not a musician!’ he muttered finally.
And his tired head dropped back heavily on to his pillow
XXIII
THE next morning host and guest had their tea out in the garden under an old lime.
‘Maestro!’ said Lavretsky during the course of their talk, ‘you’ll soon have to compose a triumphal cantata.’
‘For what occasion?’
‘The occasion of the marriage of Mr Panshin and Liza. Didn’t you notice how he was courting her yesterday? It seems that everything’s going along fine between them.’
‘It will not happen!’ exclaimed Lemm.
‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s impossible. However,’ he added after a short pause, ‘anything’s possible. Especially among you, here in Russia.’
‘We’ll leave Russia out of it for the time being; but what do you find wrong in such a marriage?’
‘Everything’s wrong, everything. Lizaveta Mikhaylovna is a right-minded, serious girl of noble feelings and he’s – he’s a dilettante, to put it in a nutshell.’
‘But surely she’s in love with him?’
Lemm rose from the garden bench.
‘No, she’s not in love with him – that is to say, she’s pure in heart and does not know herself what it means to be in love. Madame von Kalitin tells her that he is a good young man, and she listens to Madame von Kalitin because she’s still quite a child even though she’s nineteen, saying her prayers night and morning as she does, which is very praiseworthy; but she’s not in love with him. She can love only what is beautiful, and he is not beautiful – that’s to say, he hasn’t got a beautiful soul.’
Lemm delivered thisspeech fluently and heatedly, taking little steps backwards and forwards in front of the tea table and darting his eyes about on the ground.
‘My most precious maestro,’ exclaimed Lavretsky suddenly, ‘I think you’re in love with my cousin yourself!’
Lemm stopped suddenly.
‘Please,’ he began in an unsteady voice, ‘don’t make fun of me. I’m not out of my mind: I look forward to a dark grave, not to a rosy future.’
Lavretsky felt pity for the old man and asked his forgiveness. After tea Lemm played him his cantata, and over dinner, provoked into doing so by Lavretsky himself, he again spoke about Liza. Lavretsky listened to him with attention and curiosity.
‘How do you think, Christopher Fyodorych,’ hesaideventually, ‘everything here’s in order, it seems, with the garden in full bloom – couldn’t we invite her here for the day with her mother and my old auntie, eh? Would that please you?’
Lemm bent his head over his plate.
‘Invite them,’ he said barely audibly.
‘But without Panshin?’
‘Without Panshin,’ replied the old man with an almost childlike smile.
Two days later Fyodor Ivanych set off for town to see the Kalitins.
XXIV
HE found everybody at home, but he did not announce his intention at once; he wanted first to discuss the matter alone with Liza. An occasion helped him: they were left alone together in the drawing-room. They struck up a conversation; she had already grown used to him – indeed, she was generally socially at her ease with anyone. He listened to her, gazed into her face and mentally repeated Lemm’s words about her, agreeing with him. It sometimes happens that two already familiar, but not intimate, people suddenly and rapidly draw closer to each other in the course of a few moments – and an awareness of this intimacy is immediately expressed in their looks, in their calm and friendly smiles, and in their very movements. This is precisely what happened to Lavretsky and Liza. ‘So that’s what he’s like,’ she thought, looking fondly at him; ‘so that’s what you’re like,’ he thought as well. So that he was not very surprised when she, not of course without a little hesitation, announced to him that she had long had it in her heart to say something to him, but had been frightened of annoying him.
‘Don’t be frightened, say it,’ he said and stopped in front of her.
Liza raised her clear eyes to his face.
‘You are so kind,’ she began, and at that very moment she thought: ‘Yes, he really is kind…’ ‘You must forgive me, I shouldn’t dare to speak about this to you… but how could you… why did you leave your wife?’
Lavretsky shuddered, glanced at Liza and sat down beside her.
‘My child,’ he said, ‘please don’t touch that wound. Your fingers are soft, but it will still be painful to me.’
‘I know’, Liza continued, as if she had misheard him, ‘she has wronged you and I don’t want to justify her; but how can one separate w
hat God has joined together?’
‘Our convictions on that account are too far apart, Lizaveta Mikhaylovna,’ said Lavretsky rather sharply. ‘We will not understand each other.’
Liza went pale; her whole body gave a slight shudder, but she did not fall silent.
‘You must forgive,’ she said quietly, ‘if you wish to be forgiven as well.’
‘Forgive!’ Lavretsky chimed in. ‘You should start by recognizing whom you’re asking to forgive. Forgive that woman, take her back into my house, her, that empty, heartless creature! And who told you that she wants to return to me? Besides, she is quite content with her lot…. There’s no point in talking about it! Her name should not even be uttered by you. You’re too pure and you’re not even in a position to understand such a creature.’
‘How insulting to her!’ Liza said with an effort. Her hands were noticeably shaking. ‘You were the one who left her, Fyodor Ivanych.’
‘But I’m telling you,’ Lavretsky countered with an involuntary burst of impatience, ‘you don’t know what sort of a creature she is!’
‘So why did you marry her?’ Liza whispered and lowered her eyes.
Lavretsky rose abruptly from his chair.
‘Why did I marry? I was young then, and inexperienced; I was deceived, I was carried away by beautiful looks. I did not know women, I did not know anything. God grant that you make a happier match! But believe me, you can’t be sure of anything beforehand.’
‘I could also be unfortunate,’ said Liza (her voice was beginning to break), ‘but in that case it’d be necessary to submit to one’s fate; I don’t know how to say this, but if we will not submit…’
Lavretsky clenched his fists and tapped his foot.
‘Don’t be angry, forgive me,’ Liza uttered hurriedly.
At that moment Marya Dmitrievna entered. Liza stood up and wanted to leave.
‘Wait a minute,’ Lavretsky unexpectedly called after her. ‘I have a great favour to ask you and your mother. Visit me for my house-warming. You know I’ve had a piano installed; Lemm is staying with me; the lilac is now in bloom; you can have a breath of country air and return the same day – do you agree?’
Liza glanced at her mother, while Marya Dmitrievna assumed a pained look; but Lavretsky gave her no chance to open her mouth and there and then kissed her on both hands. Marya Dmitrievna, always susceptible to endearments and by no means anticipating such courtesy from ‘the fat seal’, softened her heart and agreed. While she was considering which day to choose, Lavretsky went up to Liza and, still overwrought, furtively whispered to her: ‘Thank you, you’re a kind girl; I’m to blame…’ And her pale face crimsoned with a happy, ashamed smile; her eyes also smiled – until that moment she was afraid she had offended him.
‘Can Vladimir Nikolaich come with us?’ asked Marya Dmitrievna.
‘Of course,’ Lavretsky replied, ‘but wouldn’t it be best to keep it just in the family?’
‘Surely, though, it seems…’ Marya Dmitrievna began. ‘However, as you wish,’ she added.
It was decided to take Lenochka and Shurochka. Marfa Timofeyevna declined to make the trip.
‘Too hard for me, my dear,’ she said, ‘it’d break my old bones; and probably there’s nowhere at your place where I could spend the night; besides, I can’t sleep in a strange bed. Let the young ones go for the ride.’
Lavretsky did not succeed in being alone with Liza again; but he looked at her in such a way that she began to feel happy and a little ashamed and sorry for him. In saying goodbye to her he pressed her hand firmly; she became thoughtful when she was alone.
XXV
WHEN Lavretsky returned home he was met on the threshold of the drawing-room by a tall, thin man in a worn blue coat, with a wrinkled but animated face, dishevelled grey side-whiskers, a long straight nose and small inflamed eyes. This was Mikhalevich, his former university comrade. Lavretsky did not recognize him at first, but embraced him warmly when the latter announced himself. They had not seen each other since their Moscow days. Exclamations and questions poured out; long dead memories broke into the light of day. Hurriedly smoking pipe after pipe, swallowing mouthfuls of tea and waving his long arms, Mikhalevich told Lavretsky of his adventures; there was nothing very gay about them, and he could not boast of success in what he had done – yet he ceaselessly laughed his hoarse, nervous laugh. A month ago he had obtained a position in the private office of a rich tax-farmer some two hundred miles from the town of O… and, having learned of Lavretsky’s return from abroad, had made a detour to see his old friend. Mikhalevich talked just as impulsively as he had done in his youth, with just as much sound and fury. Lavretsky was on the point of mentioning his circumstances, but Mikhalevich interrupted him by hurriedly muttering: ‘I heard about it, my dear chap – who would’ve expected such a thing?’ – and at once directed the conversation to matters of general interest.
‘My dear fellow,’ he said, ‘I must be off tomorrow; today – you must forgive me – we will go to bed late. I simply must know what you’ve been up to, what your opinions and convictions are, what you’ve become, what life has taught you.’ (Mikhalevich adhered to the phraseology of the thirties.) ‘So far as I’m concerned, I’ve changed a great deal, my dear chap. The waves of life have broken o’er my breast – by the way, who said that? – although in all the important and essential things I have not changed; I believe as ever in goodness and truth; but I not only believe in them, I now have faith – yes, I have faith in them, I have faith in them. Listen a moment – you know I scribble verses; there’s no poetry in them, but there is truth. I’ll read you my latest piece: in it I’ve expressed my most heartfelt convictions. Listen.’
Mikhalevich set about reading his poem; it was fairly long and ended with the following lines:
To new feelings with all my heart I’m given,
As a child have I become in soul:
And I’ve burnt all to which I once was given,
And bow down to all I burnt of old.
Speaking the last two lines, Mikhalevich almost broke down and cried; slight quiverings – the sign of strong feeling – flitted across his broad lips and his unattractive face lit up. Lavretsky listened and listened to him – and a spirit of opposition stirred within him: he was irritated by the ever-ready, continuously effervescent exultation of the Moscow student. A quarter of an hour had hardly passed before an argument sprang up between them, one of those interminable arguments of which only Russians are capable. From the outset, after many years of separation spent in two different worlds, without clearly understanding others’ or even their own ideas, latching on to words and bandying words about, they became embroiled in an argument about the most abstract matters – and they argued as if it were a matter of life and death for both of them: literally bayed and howled, so that everyone in the house was in a state of commotion, and the wretched Lemm, who ever since Mikhalevich’s arrival had locked himself in his room, felt quite put out and even began to be vaguely frightened.
‘What are you after this – disillusioned?’ shouted Mikhalevich after midnight.
‘Is this how disillusioned people are?’ Lavretsky protested. ‘They’re usually pale and sickly, but if you like I’ll lift you up with one hand.’
‘Well, then, if you’re not disillusioned, you’re a scepteek, which is still worse.’ (Mikhalevich’s pronunciation smacked of his Little Russian homeland.) ‘What right have you to be a sceptic? Granted that you’ve not been lucky in your life; you weren’t to blame for that: you were born with a passionate and loving soul, and yet you were forcibly kept from women; the first woman who came along was bound to deceive you.’