Works of Ivan Turgenev (Illustrated) (141 page)

XXXVII

DIRECTLY Solomin had gone, Nejdanov jumped up from the couch, walked up and down the room several times, then stood still in the middle in a sort of stony indecision. Suddenly he threw off his “masquerade” costume, kicked it into a corner of the room, and put on his own clothes. He then went up to the little three - legged table, pulled out of a drawer two sealed letters and some other object which he thrust into his pocket; the letters he left on the table. Then he crouched down before the stove and opened the little door. A whole heap of ashes lay inside. This was all that remained of Nejdanov’s papers, of his sacred book of verses ... He had burned them all in the night. Leaning against one side of the stove was Mariana’s portrait that Markelov had given him. He had evidently not had the heart to burn that too! He took it out carefully and put in on the table beside the two letters.

Then, with a quick resolute movement, he put on his cap and walked towards the door. But suddenly he stopped, turned back, and went into Mariana’s room. There, he stood still for a moment, gazed round, then approaching her narrow little bed, bent down and with one stifled sob pressed his lips to the foot of the bed. He then jumped up, thrust his cap over his forehead, and rushed out. Without meeting anyone in the corridor, on the stairs, or down below, he darted out into the garden. It was a grey day, with a low - hanging sky and a damp breeze that blew in waves over the tops of the grass and made the trees rustle. A whiff of coal, tar, and tallow was borne along from the yard, but the noise and rattling in the factory was fainter than usual at that time of day. Nejdanov looked round sharply to see if anyone was about and made straight for the old apple tree that had first attracted his attention when he had looked out of the little window of his room on the day of his arrival. The whole of its trunk was evergrown with dry moss, its bare, rugged branches, sparsely covered with reddish leaves, rose crookedly, like some old arms held up in supplication. Nejdanov stepped firmly on to the dark soil beneath the tree and pulled out the object he had taken from the table drawer. He looked up intently at the windows of the little house. “If somebody were to see me now, perhaps I wouldn’t do it,” he thought. But no human being was to be seen anywhere — everyone seemed dead or turned away from him, leaving him to the mercy of fate. Only the muffled hum and roar of the factory betrayed any signs of life; and overhead a fine, keen, chilly rain began falling.

Nejdanov gazed up through the crooked branches of the tree under which he was standing at the grey, cloudy sky looking down upon him so unfeelingly. He yawned and lay down. “There’s nothing else to be done. I can’t go back to St. Petersburg, to prison,” he thought. A kind of pleasant heaviness spread all over his body. .. He threw away his cap, took up the revolver, and pulled the trigger.

Something struck him instantly, but with no very great violence. .. He was lying on his back trying to make out what had happened to him and how it was that he had just seen Tatiana. He tried to call her... but a peculiar numbness had taken possession of him and curious dark green spots were whirling about all over him — in his eyes, over his head, in his brain — and some frightfully heavy, dull weight seemed to press him to the earth forever.

Nejdanov did really get a glimpse of Tatiana. At the moment when he pulled the trigger she had looked out of a window and caught sight of him standing under the tree. She had hardly time to ask herself what he was doing there in the rain without a hat, when he rolled to the ground like a sheaf of corn. She did not hear the shot — it was very faint — but instantly felt that something was amiss and rushed out into the garden. She came up to Nejdanov, breathless.

“Alexai Dmitritch! What is the matter with you?”

But a darkness had already descended upon him. Tatiana bent over and noticed blood...

“Pavel!” she shouted at the top of her voice, “Pavel!”

A minute or two later, Mariana, Solomin, Pavel, and two workmen were in the garden. They lifted him instantly, carried him into the house, and laid him on the same couch on which he had passed his last night.

He lay on his back with half - closed eyes, his face blue all over. There was a rattling in his throat, and every now and again he gave a choking sob. Life had not yet left him. Mariana and Solomin were standing on either side of him, almost as pale as he was himself. They both felt crushed, stunned, especially Mariana — but they were not surprised. “How did we not foresee this?” they asked themselves, but it seemed to them that they had foreseen it all along. When he said to Mariana, “Whatever I do, I tell you beforehand, nothing will really surprise you,” and when he had spoken of the two men in him that would not let each other live, had she not felt a kind of vague presentiment? Then why had she ignored it? Why was it she did not now dare to look at Solomin, as though he were her accomplice...as though he, too, were conscience - stricken? Why was it that her unutterable, despairing pity for Nejdanov was mixed with a feeling of horror, dread, and shame? Perhaps she could have saved him? Why are they both standing there, not daring to pronounce a word, hardly daring to breathe - waiting... for what? “Oh, God!”

Solomin sent for a doctor, though there was no hope. Tatiana bathed Nejdanov’s head with cold water and vinegar and laid a cold sponge on the small, dark wound, now free from blood. Suddenly the rattling in Nejdanov’s throat ceased and he stirred a little.

“He is coming to himself,” Solomin whispered. Mariana dropped down on her knees before him. Nejdanov glanced at her.. up until then his eyes had borne that fixed, far - away look of the dying.

“I am... still alive,” he pronounced scarcely audible. “I couldn’t even do this properly... I am detaining you.”

“Aliosha!” Mariana sobbed out.

“It won’t... be long.... Do you... remember... Mariana ... my poem?... Surround me with flowers... But where... are the... flowers? Never mind... so long as you... are here...There in... my letter...”

He suddenly shuddered.

“Ah! here it comes... Take... each other’s hands... before me... quickly... take...”

Solomin seized Mariana’s hand. Her head lay on the couch, face downwards, close to the wound. Solomin, dark as night, held himself severely erect.

“That’s right... that’s...”

Nejdanov broke out into sobs again — strange unusual sobs... His breast rose, his sides heaved.

He tried to lay his hand on their united ones, but it fell back dead.

“He is passing away,” Tatiana whispered as she stood at the door, and began crossing herself.

His sobs grew briefer, fewer... He still searched around for Mariana with his eyes, but a menacing white film was spreading over them.

“That’s right,” were his last words.

He had breathed his last... and the clasped hands of Mariana and Solomin still lay upon his breast.

The following are the contents of the two letters he had left. One consisting only of a few lines, was addressed to Silin:

“Goodbye, my dear friend, goodbye! When this reaches you, I shall be no more. Don’t ask why or wherefore, and don’t grieve; be sure that I am better off now. Take up our immortal Pushkin and read over the description of the death of Lensky in ‘Yevgenia Onegin.’ Do you remember? The windows are white - washed. The mistress has gone — that’s all. There is nothing more for me to say. Were I to say all I wanted to, it would take up too much time. But I could not leave this world without telling you, or you might have gone on thinking of me as living and I should have put a stain upon our friendship. Goodbye; live well. — Your friend, A. N.”

The other letter, somewhat longer, was addressed to Solomin and Mariana. It began thus:

“MY DEAR CHILDREN” (immediately after these words there was a break, as if something had been scratched or smeared out, as if tears had fallen upon it), — ”It may seem strange to you that I should address you in this way — I am almost a child myself and you, Solomin, are older than I am. But I am about to die — and standing as I do at the end of my life, I look upon myself as an old man. I have wronged you both, especially you, Mariana, by causing you so much grief and pain (I know you will grieve, Mariana) and giving you so much anxiety. But what could I do? I could think of no other way out. I could not simplify myself, so the only thing left for me to do was to blot myself out altogether.

“Mariana, I would have been a burden to you and to myself. You are generous, you would have borne the burden gladly, as a new sacrifice, but I have no right to demand such a sacrifice of you — you have a higher and better work before you. My children, let me unite you as it were from the grave. You will live happily together. Mariana, I know you will come to love Solomin — and he. .. he loved you from the moment he first saw you at the Sipiagins. It was no secret to me, although we ran away a few days later. Ah! that glorious morning! how exquisite and fresh and young it was! It comes back to me now as a token, a symbol of your life together — your life and his — and I by the merest chance happened to be in his place. But enough! I don’t want to complain, I only want to justify myself. Some very sorrowful moments are in store for you tomorrow. But what could I do? There was no other alternative. Goodbye, Mariana, my dear good girl! Goodbye, Solomin! I leave her in your charge. Be happy together; live for the sake of others. And you, Mariana, think of me only when you are happy. Think of me as a man who had also some good in him, but for whom it was better to die than to live. Did I really love you? I don’t know, dear friend. But I do know that I never loved anyone more than you, and that it would have been more terrible for me to die had I not that feeling for you to carry away with me to the grave. Mariana, if you ever come across a Miss Mashurina — Solomin knows her, and by the way, I think you’ve met her too — tell her that I thought of her with gratitude just before the end. She will understand. But I must tear myself away at last. I looked out of the window just now and saw a lovely star amidst the swiftly moving clouds. No matter how quickly they chased one another, they could not hide it from view. That star reminded me of you, Mariana. At this moment you are asleep in the next room, unsuspecting... I went to your door, listened, and fancied I heard your pure, calm breathing.. . Goodbye! goodbye! goodbye, my children, my friends! — Yours, A.

“Dear me! how is it that in my final letter I made no mention of our great cause? I suppose lying is of no use when you’re on the point of death. Forgive this postscript, Mariana... The falsehood lies in me, not in the thing in which you believe! One more word. You might have thought perhaps, Mariana, that I put an end to myself merely because I was afraid of going to prison, but believe me that is not true. There is nothing terrible about going to prison in itself, but being shut up there for a cause in which you have no faith is unthinkable. It was not fear of prison that drove me to this, Mariana. Goodbye! goodbye! my dear, pure girl.”

Mariana and Solomin each read the letter in turn. She then put her own portrait and the two letters into her pocket and remained standing motionless.

“Let us go, Mariana; everything is ready. We must fulfil his wish,” Solomin said to her.

Mariana drew near to Nejdanov and pressed her lips against his forehead which was already turning cold.

“Come,” she said, turning to Solomin. They went out, hand in hand.

When the police arrived at the factory a few hours later, they found Nejdanov’s corpse. Tatiana had laid out the body, put a white pillow under his head, crossed his arms, and even placed a bunch of flowers on a little table beside him. Pavel, who had been given all the needful instructions, received the police officers with the greatest respect and as great a contempt, so that those worthies were not quite sure whether to thank or arrest him. He gave them all the details of the suicide, regaled them with Swiss cheese and Madeira, but as for the whereabouts of Vassily Fedotitch and the young lady, he knew nothing of that. He was most effusive in his assurances that Vassily Fedotitch was never away for long at a time on account of his work, that he was sure to be back either today or tomorrow, and that he would let them know as soon as he arrived. They might depend on him!

So the officers went away no wiser than they had come, leaving a guard in charge of the body and promising to send a coroner.

XXXVIII

Two days after these events, a cart drove up the courtyard of the worthy Father Zosim, containing a man and woman who are already known to the reader. The following day they were legally married. Soon afterwards they disappeared, and the good father never regretted what he had done. Solomin had left a letter in Pavel’s charge, addressed to the proprietor of the factory, giving a full statement of the condition of the business (it turned out most flourishing) and asking for three months’ leave. The letter was dated two days before Nejdanov’s death, from which might be gathered that Solomin had considered it necessary even then to go away with him and Mariana and hide for a time. Nothing was revealed by the inquiry held over the suicide. The body was buried. Sipiagin gave up searching for his niece.

Nine months later Markelov was tried. At the trial he was just as calm as he had been at the governor’s. He carried himself with dignity, but was rather depressed. His habitual hardness had toned down somewhat, not from any cowardice; a nobler element had been at work. He did not defend himself, did not regret what he had done, blamed no one, and mentioned no names. His emaciated face with the lustreless eyes retained but one expression: submission to his fate and firmness. His brief, direct, truthful answers aroused in his very judges a feeling akin to pity. Even the peasants who had seized him and were giving evidence against him shared this feeling and spoke of him as a good, simple - hearted gentleman. But his guilt could not possibly be passed over; he could not escape punishment, and he himself seemed to look upon it as his due. Of his few accomplices, Mashurina disappeared for a time. Ostrodumov was killed by a shopkeeper he was inciting to revolt, who had struck him an “awkward” blow. Golushkin, in consideration of his penitence (he was nearly frightened out of his wits), was let off lightly. Kisliakov was kept under arrest for about a month, after which he was released and even allowed to continue “galloping” from province of province. Nejdanov died, Solomin was under suspicion, but for lack of sufficient evidence was left in peace. (He did not, however, avoid trial and appeared when wanted.) Mariana was not even mentioned; Paklin came off splendidly; indeed no notice was taken of him.

A year and a half had gone by — it was the winter of 1870. In St. Petersburg — the very same St. Petersburg where the chamberlain Sipiagin, now a privy councillor, was beginning to play such an important part; where his wife patronised the arts, gave musical evenings, and founded charitable cook - shops; where Kollomietzev was considered one of the most hopeful members of the ministerial department — a little man was limping along one of the streets of the Vassily island, attired in a shabby coat with a catskin collar. This was no other than our old friend Paklin. He had changed a great deal since we last saw him. On his temples a few strands of silvery hair peeped out from under his fur cap. A tall, stout woman, closely muffled in a dark cloth coat, was coming towards him on the pavement. Paklin looked at her indifferently and passed on. Suddenly he stopped, threw up his arms as though struck by something, turned back quickly, and overtaking her peeped under her hat.

“Mashurina!” he exclaimed in an undertone.

The lady looked at him haughtily and walked on without saying a word.

“Dear Mashurina, I recognised you at once,” Paklin continued, hobbling along beside her; “don’t be afraid, I won’t give you away! I am so glad to see you! I’m Paklin, Sila Paklin, you know, Nejdanov’s friend. Do come home with me. I live quite near here. Do come!”

“Io sono contessa Rocca di Santo Fiume!” the lady said softly, but in a wonderfully pure Russian accent.

“Contessa! nonsense! Do come in and let us talk about old times — ”

“Where do you live?” the Italian countess asked suddenly in Russian. “I’m in a hurry.”

“In this very street; in that grey three - storied house over there. It’s so nice of you not to have snubbed me! Give me your hand, come on. Have you been here long? How do you come to be a countess? Have you married an Italian count?”

Mashurina had not married an Italian count. She had been provided with a passport made out in the name of a certain Countess Rocca di Santo Fiume, who had died a short time ago, and had come quite calmly to Russia, though she did not know a single word of Italian and had the most typical of Russian faces.

Paklin brought her to his humble little lodging. His humpbacked sister who shared it with him came out to greet them from behind the partition dividing the kitchen from the passage.

“Here, Snapotchka,” he said, “let me introduce you to a great friend of mine. We should like some tea as soon as you can get it.”

Mashurina, who would on no account have come had not Paklin mentioned Nejdanov, bowed, then taking off her hat and passing her masculine hand through her closely cropped hair, sat down in silence. She had scarcely changed at all; even her dress was the same she had worn two years ago; only her eyes wore a fixed, sad expression, giving a pathetic look to her usually hard face. Snandulia went out for the samovar, while Paklin sat down opposite Mashurina and stroked her knee sympathetically. His head dropped on his breast, he could not speak from choking, and the tears glistened in his eyes. Mashurina sat erect and motionless, gazing severely to one side.

“Those were times!” Paklin began at last. “As I look at you everything comes back to me, the living and the dead. Even my little poll - parrots are no more...I don’t think you knew them, by the way. They both died on the same day, as I always predicted they would. And Nejdanov... poor Nejdanov! I suppose you know — ”

“Yes, I know,” Mashurina interrupted him, still looking away.

“And do you know about Ostrodumov too?”

Mashurina merely nodded her head. She wanted him to go on talking about Nejdanov, but could not bring herself to ask him. He understood her, however.

“I was told that he mentioned you in the letter he left. Was it true?

“Yes,” Mashurina replied after a pause.

“What a splendid chap he was! He didn’t fall into the right rut somehow. He was about as fitted to be a revolutionist as I am! Do you know what he really was? The idealist of realism. Do you understand me?”

Mashurina flung him a rapid glance. She did not understand him and did not want to understand him. It seemed to her impertinent that he should compare himself to Nejdanov. “Let him brag!” she thought, though he was not bragging at all, but rather depreciating himself, according to his own ideas.

“Some fellow called Silin sought me out; Nejdanov, it seems, had left a letter for him too. Well, he wanted to know if Alexai had left any papers, but we hunted through all his things and found nothing. He must have burned everything, even his poems. Did you know that he wrote verses? I’m sorry they were destroyed; there must have been some good things among them. They all vanished with him — became lost in the general whirl, dead and gone for ever. Nothing was left except the memories of his friends — until they, too, vanish in their turn!”

Paklin ceased.

“Do you remember the Sipiagins?” he began again; “those respectable, patronising, loathsome swells are now at the very height of power and glory.” Mashurina, of course, did not remember the Sipiagins, but Paklin hated them so much that he could not keep from abusing them on every possible occasion. “They say there’s such a high tone in their house! they’re always talking about virtue! It’s a bad sign, I think. Reminds me rather of an over - scented sick room. There must be some bad smell to conceal. Poor Alexai! It was they who ruined him!”

“And what is Solomin doing?” Mashurina asked. She had suddenly ceased wishing to hear Paklin talk about him.

“Solomin!” Paklin exclaimed. “He’s a clever chap! turned out well too. He’s left the old factory and taken all the best men with him. There was one fellow there called Pavel — could do anything; he’s taken him along too. They say he has a small factory of his own now, somewhere near Perm, run on cooperative lines. He’s all right! he’ll stick to anything he undertakes. Got some grit in him! His strength lies in the fact that he doesn’t attempt to cure all the social ills with one blow. What a rum set we are to be sure, we Russians! We sit down quietly and wait for something or someone to come along and cure us all at once; heal all our wounds, pull out all our diseases, like a bad tooth. But who or what is to work this magic spell, Darwinism, the land, the Archbishop Perepentiev, a foreign war, we don’t know and don’t care, but we must have our tooth pulled out for us! It’s nothing but mere idleness, sluggishness, want of thinking. Solomin, on the other hand, is different; he doesn’t go in for pulling teeth — he knows what he’s about!”

Mashurina gave an impatient wave of the hand, as though she wished to dismiss the subject.

“And that girl,” she began, “I forget her name... the one who ran away with Nejdanov — what became of her?”

“Mariana? She’s Solomin’s wife now. They married over a year ago. It was merely for the sake of formality at first, but now they say she really is his wife.”

Mashurina gave another impatient gesture. There was a time when she was jealous of Mariana, but now she was indignant with her for having been false to Nejdanov’s memory.

“I suppose they have a baby by now,” she said in an offhanded tone.

“I really don’t know. But where are you off to?” Paklin asked, seeing that she had taken up her hat. “Do stay a little longer; my sister will bring us some tea directly.”

It was not so much that he wanted Mashurina to stay, as that he could not let an opportunity slip by of giving utterance to what had accumulated and was boiling over in his breast. Since his return to St. Petersburg he had seen very little of people, especially of the younger generation. The Nejdanov affair had scared him; he grew more cautious, avoided society, and the young generation on their side looked upon him with suspicion. Once someone had even called him a traitor to his face.

As he was not fond of associating with the elder generation, it sometimes fell to his lot to be silent for weeks. To his sister he could not speak out freely, not because he considered her too stupid to understand him — oh, no! he had the highest opinion of her intelligence — but as soon as he began letting off some of his pet fireworks she would look at him with those sad reproachful eyes of hers, making him feel quite ashamed. And really, how is a man to go through life without letting off just a few squibs every now and again? So life in St. Petersburg became insupportable to Paklin and he longed to remove to Moscow. Speculations of all sorts — ideas, fancies, and sarcasms — were stored up in him like water in a closed mill. The floodgates could not be opened and the water grew stagnant. With the appearance of Mashurina the gates opened wide, and all his pent - up ideas came pouring out with a rush. He talked about St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg life, the whole of Russia. No one was spared! Mashurina was very little interested in all this, but she did not contradict or interrupt, and that was all he wanted of her.

“Yes,” he began, “a fine time we are living in, I can assure you! Society in a state of absolute stagnation; everyone bored to death! As for literature, it’s been reduced to a complete vacuum swept clean! Take criticism for example. If a promising young critic has to say, ‘It’s natural for a hen to lay eggs,’ it takes him at least twenty whole pages to expound this mighty truth, and even then he doesn’t quite manage it! They’re as puffed up as feather - beds, these fine gentlemen, as soft - soapy as can be, and are always in raptures over the merest commonplaces! As for science, ha, ha, ha! we too have our learned Kant! [The word kant in Russian means a kind of braid or piping.] on the collars of our engineers! And it’s no better in art! You go to a concert and listen to our national singer Agremantsky. Everyone is raving about him. But he has no more voice than a cat! Even Skoropikin, you know, our immortal Aristarchus, rings his praises. ‘Here is something,’ he declares, ‘quite unlike Western art!’ Then he raves about our insignificant painters too! ‘At one time, I bowed down before Europe and the Italians,’ he says, ‘but I’ve heard Rossini and seen Raphael and confess I was not at all impressed.’ And our young men just go about repeating what he says and feel quite satisfied with themselves. And meanwhile the people are dying of hunger, crushed down by taxes. The only reform that has been accomplished is that the men have taken to wearing caps and the women have left off their head - dresses! And the poverty! the drunkenness! the usury!”

But at this point Mashurina yawned and Paklin saw that he must change the subject.

“You haven’t told me yet,” he said, turning to her, “where you’ve been these two years; when you came back, what you’ve been doing with yourself, and how you managed to turn into an Italian countess — ”