Works of Ivan Turgenev (Illustrated) (151 page)

‘What is it?’

‘Won’t you play me something on the piano? By the way, I’ve something I want to say to you,’ I added, dropping my voice.

Sophia, without saying a word, walked into the other room; I followed her. She came to a standstill at the piano.

‘What am I to play you?’ she inquired.

‘What you like … one of Chopin’s nocturnes.’

Sophia began the nocturne. She played rather badly, but with feeling. Her sister played nothing but polkas and waltzes, and even that very seldom. She would go sometimes with her indolent step to the piano, sit down, let her coat slip from her shoulders down to her elbows (I never saw her without a coat), begin playing a polka very loud, and without finishing it, begin another, then she would suddenly heave a sigh, get up, and go back again to the window. A queer creature was that Varvara!

I sat down near Sophia.

‘Sophia Nikolaevna,’ I began, watching her intently from one side. ‘I ought to tell you a piece of news, news disagreeable to me.’

‘News? what is it?’

‘I’ll tell you…. Up till now I have been mistaken in you, completely mistaken.’

‘How was that?’ she rejoined, going on playing, and keeping her eyes fixed on her fingers.

‘I imagined you to be open; I imagined that you were incapable of hypocrisy, of hiding your feelings, deceiving….’

Sophia bent her face closer over the music.

‘I don’t understand you.’

‘And what’s more,’ I went on; ‘I could never have conceived that you, at your age, were already quite capable of acting a part in such masterly fashion.’

Sophia’s hands faintly trembled above the keys. ‘Why are you saying this?’ she said, still not looking at me; ‘I play a part?’

‘Yes, you do.’ (She smiled … I was seized with spiteful fury.) … ‘You pretend to be indifferent to a man and … and you write letters to him,’ I added in a whisper.

Sophia’s cheeks grew white, but she did not turn to me: she played the nocturne through to the end, got up, and closed the piano.

‘Where are you going?’ I asked her in some perplexity. ‘You have no answer to make me?’

‘What answer can I make you? I don’t know what you ‘re talking about…. And I am not good at pretending….’

She began putting by the music.

The blood rushed to my head. ‘No; you know what I am talking about,’ I said, and I too got up from my seat; ‘or if you like, I will remind you directly of some of your expressions in one letter: “be as careful as before”….’

Sophia gave a faint start.

‘I never should have expected this of you,’ she said at last.

‘I never should have expected,’ I retorted, ‘that you, Sophia

Nikolaevna, would have deigned to notice a man who …’

Sophia turned with a rapid movement to me; I instinctively stepped back a little from her; her eyes, always half closed, were so wide open that they looked immense, and they glittered wrathfully under her frowning brows.

‘Oh! if that’s it,’ she said, ‘let me tell you that I love that man, and that it’s absolutely no consequence to me what you think about him or about my love for him. And what business is it of yours? … What right have you to speak of this? If I have made up my mind …’

She stopped speaking, and went hurriedly out of the room. I stood still. I felt all of a sudden so uncomfortable and so ashamed that I hid my face in my hands. I realised all the impropriety, all the baseness of my behaviour, and, choked with shame and remorse, I stood as it were in disgrace. ‘Mercy,’ I thought, ‘what I’ve done!’

‘Anton Nikititch,’ I heard the maid - servant saying in the outer - room, ‘get a glass of water, quick, for Sophia Nikolaevna.’

‘What’s wrong?’ answered the man.

‘I fancy she’s crying….’

I started up and went into the drawing - room for my hat.

‘What were you talking about to Sonitchka?’ Varvara inquired indifferently, and after a brief pause she added in an undertone, ‘Here’s that clerk again.’

I began saying good - bye.

‘Why are you going? Stay a little; mamma is coming down directly.’

‘No; I can’t now,’ I said: ‘I had better call and see her another time.’

At that instant, to my horror, to my positive horror, Sophia walked with resolute steps into the drawing - room. Her face was paler than usual, and her eyelids were a little red. She never even glanced at me.

‘Look, Sonia,’ observed Varvara; ‘there’s a clerk keeps continually passing our house.’

‘A spy, perhaps…’ Sophia remarked coldly and contemptuously.

This was too much. I went away, and I really don’t know how I got home.

I felt very miserable, wretched and miserable beyond description. In twenty - four hours two such cruel blows! I had learned that Sophia loved another man, and I had for ever forfeited her respect. I felt myself so utterly annihilated and disgraced that I could not even feel indignant with myself. Lying on the sofa with my face turned to the wall, I was revelling in the first rush of despairing misery, when I suddenly heard footsteps in the room. I lifted my head and saw one of my most intimate friends, Yakov Pasinkov.

I was ready to fly into a rage with any one who had come into my room that day, but with Pasinkov I could never be angry. Quite the contrary; in spite of the sorrow devouring me, I was inwardly rejoiced at his coming, and I nodded to him. He walked twice up and down the room, as his habit was, clearing his throat, and stretching out his long limbs; then he stood a minute facing me in silence, and in silence he seated himself in a corner.

I had known Pasinkov a very long while, almost from childhood. He had been brought up at the same private school, kept by a German, Winterkeller, at which I had spent three years. Yakov’s father, a poor major on the retired list, a very honest man, but a little deranged mentally, had brought him, when a boy of seven, to this German; had paid for him for a year in advance, and had then left Moscow and been lost sight of completely…. From time to time there were dark, strange rumours about him. Eight years later it was known as a positive fact that he had been drowned in a flood when crossing the Irtish. What had taken him to Siberia, God knows. Yakov had no other relations; his mother had long been dead. He was simply left stranded on Winterkeller’s hands. Yakov had, it is true, a distant relation, a great - aunt; but she was so poor, that she was afraid at first to go to her nephew, for fear she should have the care of him thrust upon her. Her fears turned out to be groundless; the kind - hearted German kept Yakov with him, let him study with his other pupils, fed him (dessert, however, was not offered him except on Sundays), and rigged him out in clothes cut out of the cast - off morning - gowns — usually snuff - coloured — of his mother, an old Livonian lady, still alert and active in spite of her great age. Owing to all these circumstances, and owing generally to Yakov’s inferior position in the school, his schoolfellows treated him in rather a casual fashion, looked down upon him, and used to call him ‘mammy’s dressing - gown,’ the ‘nephew of the mob - cap’ (his aunt invariably wore a very peculiar mob - cap with a bunch of yellow ribbons sticking straight upright, like a globe artichoke, upon it), and sometimes the ‘son of Yermak’ (because his father had, like that hero, been drowned in the Irtish). But in spite of those nicknames, in spite of his ridiculous garb, and his absolute destitution, every one was fond of him, and indeed it was impossible not to be fond of him; a sweeter, nobler nature, I imagine, has never existed upon earth. He was very good at lessons too.

When I saw him first, he was sixteen years old, and I was only just thirteen. I was an exceedingly selfish and spoilt boy; I had grown up in a rather wealthy house, and so, on entering the school, I lost no time in making friends with a little prince, an object of special solicitude to Winterkeller, and with two or three other juvenile aristocrats; while I gave myself great airs with all the rest. Pasinkov I did not deign to notice at all. I regarded the long, gawky lad, in a shapeless coat and short trousers, which showed his coarse thread stockings, as some sort of page - boy, one of the house - serfs — at best, a person of the working class. Pasinkov was extremely courteous and gentle to everybody, though he never sought the society of any one. If he were rudely treated, he was neither humiliated nor sullen; he simply withdrew and held himself aloof, with a sort of regretful look, as it were biding his time. This was just how he behaved with me. About two months passed. One bright summer day I happened to go out of the playground after a noisy game of leap - frog, and walking into the garden I saw Pasinkov sitting on a bench under a high lilac - bush. He was reading. I glanced at the cover of the book as I passed, and read
Schiller’s Werke
on the back. I stopped short.

‘Do you mean to say you know German?’ I questioned Pasinkov….

I feel ashamed to this day as I recall all the arrogance there was in the very sound of my voice…. Pasinkov softly raised his small but expressive eyes and looked at me.

‘Yes,’ he answered; ‘do you?’

‘I should hope so!’ I retorted, feeling insulted at the question, and I was about to go on my way, but something held me back.

‘What is it you are reading of Schiller?’ I asked, with the same haughty insolence.

‘At this moment I am reading “Resignation,” a beautiful poem. Would you like me to read it to you? Come and sit here by me on the bench.’

I hesitated a little, but I sat down. Pasinkov began reading. He knew

German far better than I did. He had to explain the meaning of several lines for me. But already I felt no shame at my ignorance and his superiority to me. From that day, from the very hour of our reading together in the garden, in the shade of the lilac - bush, I loved Pasinkov with my whole soul, I attached myself to him and fell completely under his sway.

I have a vivid recollection of his appearance in those days. He changed very little, however, later on. He was tall, thin, and rather awkwardly built, with a long back, narrow shoulders, and a hollow chest, which made him look rather frail and delicate, although as a fact he had nothing to complain of on the score of health. His large, dome - shaped head was carried a little on one side; his soft, flaxen hair straggled in lank locks about his slender neck. His face was not handsome, and might even have struck one as absurd, owing to the long, full, and reddish nose, which seemed almost to overhang his wide, straight mouth. But his open brow was splendid; and when he smiled, his little grey eyes gleamed with such mild and affectionate goodness, that every one felt warmed and cheered at heart at the very sight of him. I remember his voice too, soft and even, with a peculiar sort of sweet huskiness in it. He spoke, as a rule, little, and with noticeable difficulty. But when he warmed up, his words flowed freely, and — strange to say! — his voice grew still softer, his glance seemed turned inward and lost its fire, while his whole face faintly glowed. On his lips the words ‘goodness,’ ‘truth,’ ‘life,’ ‘science,’ ‘love,’ however enthusiastically they were uttered, never rang with a false note. Without strain, without effort, he stepped into the realm of the ideal; his pure soul was at any moment ready to stand before the ‘holy shrine of beauty’; it awaited only the welcoming call, the contact of another soul…. Pasinkov was an idealist, one of the last idealists whom it has been my lot to come across. Idealists, as we all know, are all but extinct in these days; there are none of them, at any rate, among the young people of to day. So much the worse for the young people of to - day!

About three years I spent with Pasinkov, ‘soul in soul,’ as the saying is.

I was the confidant of his first love. With what grateful sympathy and intentness I listened to his avowal! The object of his passion was a niece of Winterkeller’s, a fair - haired, pretty little German, with a chubby, almost childish little face, and confidingly soft blue eyes. She was very kind and sentimental: she loved Mattison, Uhland, and Schiller, and repeated their verses very sweetly in her timid, musical voice. Pasinkov’s love was of the most platonic. He only saw his beloved on Sundays, when she used to come and play at forfeits with the Winterkeller children, and he had very little conversation with her. But once, when she said to him, ‘mein lieber, lieber Herr Jacob!’ he did not sleep all night from excess of bliss. It never even struck him at the time that she called all his schoolfellows ‘mein lieber.’ I remember, too, his grief and dejection when the news suddenly reached us that Fräulein Frederike — that was her name — was going to be married to Herr Kniftus, the owner of a prosperous butcher’s shop, a very handsome man, and well educated too; and that she was marrying him, not simply in submission to parental authority, but positively from love. It was a bitter blow for Pasinkov, and his sufferings were particularly severe on the day of the young people’s first visit. The former Fräulein, now Frau, Frederike presented him, once more addressing him as ‘lieber Herr Jacob,’ to her husband, who was all splendour from top to toe; his eyes, his black hair brushed up into a tuft, his forehead and his teeth, and his coat buttons, and the chain on his waistcoat, everything, down to the boots on his rather large, turned - out feet, shone brilliantly. Pasinkov pressed Herr Kniftus’s hand, and wished him (and the wish was sincere, that I am certain) complete and enduring happiness. This took place in my presence. I remember with what admiration and sympathy I gazed at Yakov. I thought him a hero!…. And afterwards, what mournful conversations passed between us. ‘Seek consolation in art,’ I said to him. ‘Yes,’ he answered me; ‘and in poetry.’ ‘And in friendship,’ I added. ‘And in friendship,’ he repeated. Oh, happy days!…