Stories

  Kovrin sat with Tanya all evening and after midnight went to the gardens with her. It was cold. Outside there was already a strong smell of smoke. In the big orchard, which was called commercial and which brought Yegor Semyonych several thousand a year in net income, thick, black, pungent smoke covered the ground and, enveloping the trees, saved those thousands from the frost. The trees here stood in a checkerboard pattern, their rows straight and regular as ranks of soldiers, and this strict, pedantic regularity and the fact that all the trees were of the same height and had perfectly uniform crowns and trunks, made the picture monotonous and even dull. Kovrin and Tanya walked along the rows, where fires of dung, straw, and assorted refuse smoldered, and occasionally met workers, who wandered through the smoke like shades. Only the cherries, plums, and some varieties of apple were in bloom, yet the entire orchard was drowned in smoke, and it was only near the nursery that Kovrin could draw a deep breath.

  “When I was still a child I used to sneeze from the smoke here,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, “but to this day I don’t understand why smoke protects against frost.”

  “Smoke takes the place of clouds, when there aren’t any …” replied Tanya.

  “And what are clouds needed for?”

  “When the weather’s gray and overcast, there are no morning frosts.”

  “So that’s it!”

  He laughed and took her by the hand. Her broad, very serious, chilled face, with its narrow, dark eyebrows, the upturned collar of her coat, which prevented her from moving her head freely, and she herself, lean, trim, her dress tucked up on account of the dew, moved him to tenderness.

  “Lord, she’s already grown up!” he said. “When I left here the last time, five years ago, you were still a child. You were so skinny and long-legged, you went bare-headed, dressed in short skirts, and to tease you I called you a stork … What time can do!”

  “Yes, five years!” Tanya sighed. “A lot of water has flowed under the bridge. Tell me, Andryusha, in all conscience,” she began animatedly, looking into his face, “have you grown unaccustomed to us? Though why do I ask? You’re a man, you live your own interesting life, you’re important… Estrangement is so natural! But, however it may be, Andryusha, I’d like you to consider us your own. We have a right to that.”

  “I do, Tanya.”

  “Word of honor?”

  “Yes, word of honor.”

  “You were surprised today that we have so many photographs of you. But you know my father adores you. I sometimes think he loves you more than he does me. He’s proud of you. You’re a learned, extraordinary man, you’ve made a brilliant career, and he’s sure you’ve turned out like this because he brought you up. I don’t prevent him from thinking so. Let him.”

  Dawn was already breaking, and this was especially noticeable from the distinctness with which the billows of smoke and the crowns of the trees stood out in the air. Nightingales were singing, and the calling of quails came from the fields.

  “Anyhow, it’s time for bed,” said Tanya. “And it’s cold.” She took him under the arm. “Thank you for coming, Andryusha. We have uninteresting acquaintances, and few of them at that. All we have is orchard, orchard, orchard—and nothing more. Full-stock, half-stock,” she laughed, “pippin, rennet, borovinka, budding, grafting … All, all our life has gone into the orchard, I never even dream of anything but apple and pear trees. Of course, it’s good and useful, but sometimes one wants something else for diversity. I remember how you used to come to us for vacations, or just so, and the house felt somehow more fresh and bright, as if the dust covers had been taken off the furniture and lamps. I was a little girl then and yet I understood.”

  She spoke for a long time and with great feeling. For some reason it occurred to him that he might become attached to this small, weak, loquacious being, get carried away, and fall in love—in their situation it was so possible and natural! This thought moved and amused him, he bent down to the sweet, preoccupied face and sang softly:

  “Onegin, I will not conceal it,

  Madly do I love Tatiana …” 1

  When they came home, Yegor Semyonych was already up. Kovrin was not sleepy, he got to talking with the old man and went back to the gardens with him. Yegor Semyonych was tall, broad-shouldered, big-bellied, and suffered from shortness of breath, but he always walked so quickly that it was hard to keep up with him. He had an extremely preoccupied air, was always hurrying somewhere, and with a look implying that if he were even one minute late, all would be lost!

  “Here’s something, my boy …” he began, pausing to catch his breath. “On the surface of the ground, as you see, it’s freezing, but if you raise the thermometer on a stick four yards above ground, it’s warm … Why is that?”

  “I really don’t know,” Kovrin said, laughing.

  “Hm … One can’t know everything, of course … However vast the mind, not everything will find room in it. Philosophy is more in your line?”

  “Yes. I teach psychology, but I’m generally concerned with philosophy.”

  “And it doesn’t bore you?”

  “On the contrary, it’s all I live for.”

  “Well, God be with you …” Yegor Semyonych said, stroking his side-whiskers thoughtfully. “God be with you … I’m very glad … very glad for you, my boy …”

  But suddenly he cocked an ear and, making a terrible face, ran off and soon disappeared behind the trees into the clouds of smoke.

  “Who tied a horse to that apple tree?” his desperate, heartrending cry was heard. “What scoundrel and villain dared to tie a horse to that apple tree? My God, my God! Befouled, begrimed, besmutted, bedeviled! The orchard’s lost! The orchard’s ruined! My God!”

  When he came back to Kovrin, his face was exhausted, offended.

  “What can you do with these confounded people?” he said in a tearful voice, spreading his arms. “Styopka brought a load of manure during the night and tied his horse to an apple tree! The scoundrel wrapped the reins so tightly around it that the bark wore through in three places. Imagine! I tell him, and the dimwit just stands there blinking his eyes! Hanging’s too good for him!”

  Having calmed down, he embraced Kovrin and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Well, God be with you … God be with you …” he muttered. “I’m very glad you’ve come. I can’t tell you how glad … Thank you.”

  Then at the same quick pace and with a preoccupied air he went around all the gardens and showed his former ward the conservatories, hothouses, potting sheds, and his two apiaries, which he called the wonder of our century.

  As they walked about, the sun rose and brightly lit up the gardens. It became warm. Anticipating a clear, long, happy day, Kovrin remembered that it was still only the beginning of May and the whole summer still lay ahead, just as clear, long, and happy, and suddenly a joyful young feeling stirred in his breast, such as he had experienced in childhood running about in these gardens. And he embraced the old man and kissed him tenderly They were both moved. They went in and sat down to tea from old porcelain cups, with cream, with rich, buttery rolls—and these small things again reminded Kovrin of his childhood and youth. The beautiful present and the awakening impressions of the past flowed together in him; they made his soul feel crowded but good.

  He waited till Tanya woke up and had his coffee with her, strolled a little, then went to his room and sat down to work. He read attentively, took notes, and occasionally raised his eyes to look at the open windows or the fresh flowers, still wet with dew, that stood in vases on the table, then lowered them to the book again, and it seemed to him that every fiber of him was thrilling and frolicking with pleasure.

  II

  In the country he went on leading the same nervous and restless life as in the city. He read and wrote a great deal, studied Italian, and while strolling thought with pleasure that he would soon sit down to work again. He slept so little that everyone was amazed; if he inadvertently dozed off for half an hour in the a
fternoon, he would not sleep all night afterwards, and following the sleepless night would feel himself as brisk and cheerful as if nothing had happened.

  He talked a lot, drank wine, and smoked expensive cigars. Often, if not every day, neighboring young ladies visited the Pesotskys, sang and played the piano with Tanya; occasionally a young man came, a neighbor, who was a good violinist. Kovrin listened eagerly to the music and singing, and it filled him with languor, which manifested itself physically in the closing of his eyes and the drooping of his head to one side.

  Once after evening tea he was sitting on the balcony reading. In the drawing room, just then, Tanya—a soprano, one of her friends—a contralto, and the young man with the violin were rehearsing the famous serenade of Braga.2 Kovrin listened to the words—they were in Russian—and was quite unable to understand their meaning. Finally he put his book down and, listening attentively, understood: a girl with a morbid imagination heard some sort of mysterious sounds in the garden at night, so beautiful and strange that she could only take them for a sacred harmony, which we mortals were unable to understand and which therefore flew back to heaven. Kovrin’s eyes began to close. He got up and strolled languidly through the drawing room, then through the reception hall. When the singing stopped, he took Tanya under the arm and walked out to the balcony with her.

  “Ever since this morning I’ve been thinking about a certain legend,” he said. “I don’t remember whether I read it or heard it somewhere, but the legend is somehow strange, incongruous. In the first place, it’s not distinguished by its clarity. A thousand years ago a monk, dressed in black, was walking in the desert somewhere in Syria or Arabia … Several miles from the place where he was walking, some fishermen saw another black monk moving slowly over the surface of a lake. This second monk was a mirage. Now forget all the laws of optics, which the legend seems not to recognize, and listen further. The mirage produced another mirage, and that one a third, so that the image of the black monk began to be transmitted endlessly from one layer of the atmosphere to another. He was seen now in Africa, now in Spain, now in India, now in the Far North … Finally he left the limits of the earth’s atmosphere and is now wandering all over the universe, never getting into conditions that might enable him to fade away. Perhaps he can now be seen somewhere on Mars or on some star in the Southern Cross. But, my dear, the very essence, the crux, of the legend is that exactly a thousand years after the monk walked in the desert, the mirage will enter the earth’s atmosphere again and show itself to people. And the thousand years are now supposedly at an end … According to the legend, we ought to expect the black monk any day now.”

  “A strange mirage,” said Tanya, who did not like the legend.

  “But the most amazing thing,” laughed Kovrin, “is that I’m quite unable to remember how this legend came into my head. Did I read it? Hear it? Or maybe I dreamed of the black monk? I swear to God, I don’t remember. But I’m taken by this legend. I’ve been thinking about it all day today.”

  Letting Tanya go back to her guests, he left the house and strolled pensively among the flower beds. The sun was setting. The flowers had just been watered and gave off a damp, irritating smell. There was singing in the house again, and from a distance the violin gave the impression of a human voice. Straining his mind to recall where he had heard or read the legend, Kovrin went unhurriedly towards the park and without noticing it came to the river.

  Following the path that ran down the steep bank past the bared roots, he descended to the water, disturbing some snipe and scaring away two ducks. The last rays of the setting sun still glowed on the gloomy pines, but there was already real evening on the surface of the river. Kovrin crossed the river on some planks. Before him now lay a wide field covered with young, not yet flowering rye. No human dwelling, no living soul in the distance, and it seemed that the path, if one followed it, would lead you to that unknown, mysterious place where the sun had just gone down, and where the sunset flamed so vastly and majestically.

  “How spacious, free, and quiet it is here!” thought Kovrin, walking along the path. “It seems the whole world is looking at me, hiding and waiting for me to understand it …”

  But now waves passed over the rye, and a light evening breeze gently touched his bare head. A moment later there was another gust of wind, stronger now—the rye rustled, and the muted murmur of the pines came from behind him. Kovrin stopped in amazement. On the horizon, looking like a whirlwind or a tornado, a tall black pillar rose from the earth to the sky. Its contours were indistinct, but from the very first moment it was evident that it was not standing in place but moving at terrific speed, moving precisely there, straight at Kovrin, and the nearer it drew, the smaller and clearer it became. Kovrin rushed to one side, into the rye, to make way for it, and he barely had time to do so …

  A monk dressed in black, with gray hair and black eyebrows, his arms crossed on his chest, raced past … His bare feet did not touch the ground. He was already some twenty feet past Kovrin when he looked back at him, nodded and smiled at him tenderly and at the same time slyly. But what a pale, terribly pale, thin face! Beginning to grow again, he flew across the river, noiselessly struck against the clayey bank and the pines, and, passing through them, vanished like smoke.

  “Well, so you see …” Kovrin muttered. “It means the legend is true.”

  Without trying to explain the strange event to himself, pleased merely at having seen not only the black clothes but even the face and eyes of the monk so closely and clearly, feeling pleasantly excited, he returned home.

  In the park and garden people were calmly walking, there was music in the house—it meant that he alone had seen the monk. He had a great desire to tell Tanya and Yegor Semyonych everything, but he realized that they would probably consider his words raving, and that would frighten them; it was better to keep quiet. He laughed loudly, sang, danced a mazurka, had a merry time, and everybody, the guests and Tanya, found that his face was somehow especially radiant and inspired that day, and that he was very interesting.

  III

  After supper, when the guests had gone, he went to his room and lay down on the sofa: he wanted to think about the monk. But a moment later Tanya came in.

  “Here, Andryusha, read my father’s articles,” she said, handing him a stack of booklets and offprints. “Wonderful articles. He’s an excellent writer.”

  “Excellent, really!” said Yegor Semyonych, coming in after her and laughing forcedly; he was embarrassed. “Don’t listen to her, please, don’t read them! However, if you want to fall asleep, then by all means read them: a wonderful soporific.”

  “In my opinion, they are splendid articles,” Tanya said with great conviction. “Read them, Andryusha, and persuade papa to write more often. He could write a complete course in horticulture.”

  Yegor Semyonych gave a strained chuckle, blushed, and began repeating the phrases that bashful authors usually say. Finally he began to give in.

  “In that case, read the article by Gaucher first, and then these little Russian articles,” he murmured, fumbling over the booklets with trembling hands, “otherwise you won’t understand. Before reading my objections, you should know what I’m objecting to. It’s nonsense, however … boring. Anyway, I believe it’s time for bed.”

  Tanya left. Yegor Semyonych sat next to Kovrin on the sofa and sighed deeply.

  “Yes, my dear boy …” he began, after some silence. “Yes, my gentle master of arts. So I, too, write articles and take part in exhibitions and win medals … They say Pesotsky’s apples are as big as your head, and Pesotsky, they say, has made a fortune on his orchard. In short, Kochubey is rich and famous.3 But, you may ask, why all this? The orchard is indeed beautiful, exemplary … It’s not an orchard, it’s a whole institution of great national significance, because it is, so to speak, a step into a new era of the Russian economy and Russian industry. But why? With what aim?”

  “The work speaks for itself.”

  “T
hat’s not what I mean. I want to ask: what will happen to the orchard when I die? Without me it won’t hold out the way it is now for even a month. The whole secret of success is not that it’s a big orchard and there are lots of workers, but that I love doing it—you understand?—love it maybe more than my own self. Look at me: I do everything myself. I work from morning till night. I do all the budding myself, all the pruning, all the planting, I do everything myself. When somebody helps me, I get jealous and irritated to the point of rudeness. The whole secret is in love, that is, in the master’s keen eye, and the master’s hands, and in that feeling when you go for an hour’s visit somewhere, and you sit there, but your heart is uneasy, you’re not yourself: you’re afraid something may happen in the orchard. And when I die, who will look after it? Who’ll do the work? The gardener? The hired hands? Yes? I’ll tell you this, my gentle friend: the first enemy in our work isn’t the hare, or the cockchafer, or the frost, but the outsider.”

  “And Tanya?” asked Kovrin, laughing. “It can’t be that she’s worse than a hare. She loves and understands the work.”

  “Yes, she loves and understands it. If she gets the orchard after my death and becomes its manager, then one certainly could wish for nothing better. Well, but if, God forbid, she should marry?” Yegor Semyonych whispered and looked fearfully at Kovrin. “There’s the thing! She’ll marry, start having children, there’ll be no time to think about the orchard. What I fear most is that she’ll marry some fine fellow, and he’ll turn greedy and lease the orchard to some market women, and everything will go to hell in the very first year! In our work, women are the scourge of God!”