Works of Ivan Turgenev (Illustrated) (129 page)

Sipiagin was taken aback and looked at him over his shoulder.

“I’m so sorry, Vassily Fedotitch.”

“Please don’t mention it.”

As soon as they got outside they ran against Kollomietzev.

“Where are you off to?” the latter asked, looking askance at Solomin. “Are you going to the factory? C’est la l’individu en question?”

Sipiagin opened his eyes wide and shook his head slightly by way of warning.

“Yes, we’re going to the factory. I want to show all my sins and transgressions to this gentleman, who is an engineer. Allow me to introduce you. Mr. Kollomietzev, a neighbouring landowner, Mr. Solomin.”

Kollomietzev nodded his head twice in an off - hand manner without looking at Solomin, but the latter looked at him and there was a sinister gleam in his half - closed eyes.

“May I come with you?” Kollomietzev asked. “You know I’m always ready to learn.”

“Certainly, if you like.”

They went out of the courtyard into the road and had scarcely taken twenty steps when they ran across a priest in a woven cassock, who was wending his way homeward. Kollomietzev left his two companions and, going up to him with long, firm strides, asked for his blessing and gave him a sounding smack on his moist, red hand, much to the discomfiture of the priest, who did not in the least expect this sort of outburst. He then turned to Solomin and gave him a defiant look. He had evidently heard something about him and wanted to show off and get some fun out of this learned scoundrel.

“C’est une manifestation, mon cher?” Sipiagin muttered through his teeth.

Kollomietzev giggled.

“Oui, mon cher, une manifestation necessaire par temps qui court!”

They got to the factory and were met by a Little Russian with an enormous beard and false teeth, who had taken the place of the former manager, a German, whom Sipiagin had dismissed. This man was there in a temporary capacity and understood absolutely nothing; he merely kept on saying “Just so... yes... that’s it,” and sighing all the time. They began inspecting the place. Several of the workmen knew Solomin by sight and bowed to him. He even called out to one of them, “Hallo, Gregory! You here?” Solomin was soon convinced that the place was going badly. Money was simply thrown away for no reason whatever. The machines turned out to be of a very poor kind; many of them were quite superfluous and a great many necessary ones were lacking. Sipiagin kept looking into Solomin’s face, trying to guess his opinion, asked a few timid questions, wanted to know if he was at any rate satisfied with the order of the place.

“Oh, the order is all right,” Solomin replied, “but I doubt if you can get anything out of it.”

Not only Sipiagin, but even Kollomietzev felt, that in the factory Solomin was quite at home, was familiar with every little detail, was master there in fact. He laid his hand on a machine as a rider on his horse’s neck; he poked a wheel with his finger and it either stood still or began whirling round; he took some paper pulp out of a vat and it instantly revealed all its defects.

Solomin said very little, took no notice of the Little Russian at all, and went out without saying anything. Sipiagin and Kollomietzev followed him.

Sipiagin was so upset that he did not let any one accompany him. He stamped and ground his teeth with rage.

“I can see by your face,” he said turning to Solomin, “that you are not pleased with the place. Of course, I know that it’s not in a very excellent condition and doesn’t pay as yet. But please ... give me your candid opinion as to what you consider to be the principal failings and as to what one could do to improve matters.”

“Paper - manufacturing is not in my line,” Solomin began, “but I can tell you one thing. I doubt if the aristocracy is cut out for industrial enterprises.”

“Do you consider it degrading for the aristocracy?” Kollomietzev asked.

Solomin smiled his habitual broad smile.

“Oh dear no! What is there degrading about it? And even if there were, I don’t think the aristocracy would be overly particular.”

“What do you mean?”

“I only meant,” Solomin continued, calmly, “that the gentry are not used to that kind of business. A knowledge of commerce is needed for that; everything has to be put on a different footing, you want technical training for it. The gentry don’t understand this. We see them starting woollen, cotton, and other factories all over the place, but they nearly always fall into the hands of the merchants in the end. It’s a pity, because the merchants are even worse sweaters. But it can’t be helped, I suppose.”

“To listen to you one would think that all questions of finance were above our nobility!” Kollomietzev exclaimed.

“Oh no! On the other hand the nobility are masters at it. For getting concessions for railways, founding banks, exempting themselves from some tax, or anything like that, there is no one to beat them! They make huge fortunes. I hinted at that just now, but it seemed to offend you. I had regular industrial enterprises in my mind when I spoke; I say regular, because founding private public houses, petty little grocers’ shops, or lending the peasants corn or money at a hundred or a hundred and fifty percent, as many of our landed gentry are now doing, I cannot consider as genuine financial enterprises.”

Kollomietzev did not say anything. He belonged to that new species of money - lending landlord whom Markelov had mentioned in his last talk with Nejdanov, and was the more inhuman in his demands that he had no personal dealings with the peasants themselves. He never allowed them into his perfumed European study, and conducted all his business with them through his manager. He was boiling with rage while listening to Solomin’s slow, impartial speech, but he held his peace; only the working of the muscles of his face betrayed what was passing within him.

“But allow me, Vassily Fedotitch,” Sipiagin began; “what you have just said may have been quite true in former days, when the nobility had quite different privileges and were altogether in a different position; but now, after all the beneficial reforms in our present industrial age, why should not the nobility turn their attention and bring their abilities into enterprises of this nature? Why shouldn’t they be able to understand what is understood by a simple illiterate merchant? They are not suffering from lack of education and one might even claim, without any exaggeration, that they are, in a certain sense, the representatives of enlightenment and progress.”

Boris Andraevitch spoke very well; his eloquence would have made a great stir in St. Petersburg, in his department, or maybe in higher quarters, but it produced no effect whatever on Solomin.

“The nobility cannot manage these things,” Solomin repeated.

“But why, I should like to know? Why?” Kollomietzev almost shouted.

“Because there is too much of the bureaucrat about them.”

“Bureaucrat?” Kollomietzev laughed maliciously. “I don’t think you quite realise what you’re saying, Mr. Solomin.”

Solomin continued smiling.

“What makes you think so, Mr. Kolomentzev?” (Kollomietzev shuddered at hearing his name thus mutilated.) “I assure you that I always realise what I am saying.”

“Then please explain what you meant just now!”

“With pleasure. I think that every bureaucrat is an outsider and was always such. The nobility have now become ‘outsiders.’“

Kollomietzev laughed louder than ever.

“But, my dear sir, I really don’t understand what you mean!”

“So much the worse for you. Perhaps you will if you try hard enough.”

“Sir!

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Sipiagin interposed hastily, trying to catch someone’s eye, “please, please... Kallomeitzeff, je vous prie de vous calmer. I suppose dinner will soon be ready. Come along, gentlemen!”

“Valentina Mihailovna!” Kollomietzev cried out five minutes later, rushing into her boudoir. “I really don’t know what your husband is doing! He has brought us one nihilist and now he’s bringing us another! Only this one is much worse!”

“But why?”

“He is advocating the most awful things, and what do you think? He has been talking to your husband for a whole hour, and not once, not once, did he address him as Your Excellency! Le vagabond!”

XXIV

JUST before dinner Sipiagin called his wife into the library. He wanted to have a talk with her alone. He seemed worried. He told her that the factory was really in a bad way, that Solomin struck him as a capable man, although a little stiff, and thought it was necessary to continue being aux petits soins with him.

“How I should like to get hold of him!” he repeated once or twice. Sipiagin was very much annoyed at Kollomietzev’s being there. “Devil take the man! He sees nihilists everywhere and is always wanting to suppress them! Let him do it at his own house I He simply can’t hold his tongue!”

Valentina Mihailovna said that she would be delighted to be aux petits soins with the new visitor, but it seemed to her that he had no need of these petits soins and took no notice of them; not rudely in any way, but he was quite indifferent; very remarkable in a man du commun.

“Never mind.... Be nice to him just the same!” Sipiagin begged of her.

Valentina Mihailovna promised to do what he wanted and fulfilled her promise conscientiously. She began by having a tete - a - tete with Kollomietzev. What she said to him remains a secret, but he came to the table with the air of a man who had made up his mind to be discreet and submissive at all costs. This “resignation” gave his whole bearing a slight touch of melancholy; and what dignity... oh, what dignity there was in every one of his movements! Valentina Mihailovna introduced Solomin to everybody (he looked more attentively at Mariana than at any of the others), and made him sit beside her on her right at table. Kollomietzev sat on her left, and as he unfolded his serviette screwed up his face and smiled, as much as to say, “Well, now let us begin our little comedy!” Sipiagin sat on the opposite side and watched him with some anxiety. By a new arrangement of Madame Sipiagina, Nejdanov was not put next to Mariana as usual, but between Anna Zaharovna and Sipiagin. Mariana found her card (as the dinner was a stately one) on her serviette between Kollomietzev and Kolia. The dinner was excellently served; there was even a “menu” — a painted card lay before each person.

Directly soup was finished, Sipiagin again brought the conversation round to his factory, and from there went on to Russian manufacture in general. Solomin, as usual, replied very briefly. As soon as he began speaking, Mariana fixed her eyes upon him. Kollomietzev, who was sitting beside her, turned to her with various compliments (he had been asked not to start a dispute), but she did not listen to him; and indeed he pronounced all his pleasantries in a half - hearted manner, merely to satisfy his own conscience. He realised that there was something between himself and this young girl that could not be crossed.

As for Nejdanov, something even worse had come to pass between him and the master of the house. For Sipiagin, Nejdanov had become simply a piece of furniture, or an empty space that he quite ignored. These new relations had taken place so quickly and unmistakably that when Nejdanov pronounced a few words in answer to a remark of Anna Zaharovna’s, Sipiagin looked round in amazement, as if wondering where the sound came from.

Sipiagin evidently possessed some of the characteristics for which certain of the great Russian bureaucrats are celebrated for.

After the fish, Valentina Mihailovna, who had been lavishing all her charms on Solomin, said to her husband in English that she noticed their visitor did not drink wine and might perhaps like some beer. Sipiagin called aloud for ale, while Solomin calmly turned towards Valentina Mihailovna, saying, “You may not be aware, madame, that I spent over two years in England and can understand and speak English. I only mentioned it in case you should wish to say anything private before me.” Valentina Mihailovna laughed and assured him that this precaution was altogether unnecessary, since he would hear nothing but good of himself; inwardly she thought Solomin’s action rather strange, but delicate in its own way.

At this point Kollomietzev could no longer contain himself. “And so you’ve been in England,” he began, “and no doubt studied the manners and customs there. Do you think them worth imitating?”

“Some yes, others no.”

“Brief but not clear,” Kollomietzev remarked, trying not to notice the signs Sipiagin was making to him. “You were speaking of the nobility this morning... No doubt you’ve had the opportunity of studying the English landed gentry, as they call them there.”

“No, I had no such opportunity. I moved in quite a different sphere. But I formed my own ideas about these gentlemen.”

“Well, do you think that such a landed gentry is impossible among us? Or that we ought not to want it in any case?”

“In the first place, I certainly do think it impossible, and in the second, it’s hardly worthwhile wanting such a thing.”

“But why, my dear sir?” Kollomietzev asked; the polite tone was intended to soothe Sipiagin, who sat very uneasily on his chair.

“Because in twenty or thirty years your landed gentry won’t be here in any case.”

“What makes you think so?”

“Because by that time the land will fall into the hands of people in no way distinguished by their origin.”

“Do you mean the merchants?”

“For the most part probably the merchants.”

“But how will it happen?”

“They’ll buy it, of course.”

“From the gentry?”

“Yes; from the gentry.”

Kollomietzev smiled condescendingly. “If you recollect you said the very same thing about factories that you’re now saying about the land.”

“And it’s quite true.”

“You will no doubt be very pleased about it!”

“Not at all. I’ve already told you that the people won’t be any the better off for the change.”

Kollomietzev raised his hand slightly. “What solicitude on the part of the people, imagine!”

“Vassily Fedotitch!” Sipiagin called out as loudly as he could, “they have brought you some beer! Voyons, simeon!” he added in an undertone.

But Kollomietzev would not be suppressed.

“I see you haven’t a very high opinion of the merchant class,” he began again, turning to Solomin, “but they’ve sprung from the people.”

“So they have.”

“I thought that you considered everything about the people, or relating to the people, as above criticism!”

“Not at all! You are quite mistaken. The masses can be condemned for a great many things, though they are not always to blame. Our merchant is an exploiter and uses his capital for that purpose. He thinks that people are always trying to get the better of him, so he tries to get the better of them. But the people — ”

“Well, what about the people?” Kollomietzev asked in falsetto.

“The people are asleep.”

“And would you like to wake them?”

“That would not be a bad thing to do.”

“Aha! aha! So that’s what — ”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen!” Sipiagin exclaimed imperatively. He felt that the moment had come to put an end to the discussion, and he did put an end to it. With a slight gesture of his right hand, while the elbow remained propped on the table, he delivered a long and detailed speech. He praised the conservatives on the one hand and approved of the liberals on the other, giving the preference to the latter as he counted himself of their numbers. He spoke highly of the people, but drew attention to some of their weaknesses; expressed his full confidence in the government, but asked himself whether all its officials were faithfully fulfilling its benevolent designs. He acknowledged the importance of literature, but declared that without the utmost caution it was dangerous. He turned to the West with hope, then became doubtful; he turned to the East, first sighed, then became enthusiastic. Finally he proposed a toast in honour of the trinity: Religion, Agriculture, and Industry!

“Under the wing of authority!” Kollomietzev added sternly.

“Under the wing of wise and benevolent authority,” Sipiagin corrected him.

The toast was drunk in silence. The empty space on Sipiagin’s left, in the form of Nejdanov, did certainly make several sounds of disapproval; but arousing not the least attention became quiet again, and the dinner, without any further controversy, reached a happy conclusion.

Valentina Mihailovna, with a most charming smile, handed Solomin a cup of coffee; he drank it and was already looking round for his hat when Sipiagin took him gently by the arm and led him into his study. There he first gave him an excellent cigar and then made him a proposal to enter his factory on the most advantageous terms. “You will be absolute master there, Vassily Fedotitch, I assure you!” Solomin accepted the cigar and declined the offer about the factory. He stuck to his refusal, however much Sipiagin insisted.

“Please don’t say ‘no’ at once, my dear Vassily Fedotitch! Say, at least, that you’ll think it over until tomorrow!”

“It would make no difference. I wouldn’t accept your proposal.”

“Do think it over till tomorrow, Vassily Fedotitch! It won’t cost you anything.”

Solomin agreed, came out of the study, and began looking for his hat again. But Nejdanov, who until that moment had had no opportunity of exchanging a word with him, came up to him and whispered hurriedly:

“For heaven’s sake don’t go yet, or else we won’t be able to have a talk!”

Solomin left his hat alone, the more readily as Sipiagin, who had observed his irresoluteness, exclaimed:

“Won’t you stay the night with us?”

“As you wish.”

The grateful glance Mariana fixed on him as she stood at the drawing - room window set him thinking.