Works of Ivan Turgenev (Illustrated) (99 page)

A brief silence followed.

“I am of opinion, my dear sir,” began Potugin again, “that we are not only indebted to civilization for science, art, and law, but that even the very feeling for beauty and poetry is developed and strengthened under the influence of the same civilization, and that the so - called popular, simple, unconscious creation is twaddling and rubbishy. Even in Homer there are traces of a refined and varied civilization; love itself is enriched by it. The Slavophils would cheerfully hang
 
me for such a heresy, if they were not such chicken - hearted creatures; but I will stick up for my own ideas all the same; and however much they press Madame Kohanovsky and ‘The swarm of bees at rest’ upon me, -
 
- I can’t stand the odor of that
triple extrait de mougik Russe,
as I don’t belong to the highest society, which finds it absolutely necessary to assure itself from time to time that it has not turned quite French, and for whose exclusive benefit this literature
en cuir de Russie
is manufactured. Try reading the raciest, most ‘popular’ passages from the ‘Bees’ to a common peasant -
 
- a real one: he’ll think you’re repeating him a new spell against fever or drunkenness. I repeat, without civilization there’s not even poetry. If you want to get a clear idea of the poetic ideal of the uncivilized Russian, you should turn up our ballads, our legends. To say nothing of the fact that love is always presented as the result of witchcraft, of sorcery, and produced by some philtre, to say nothing of our so - called epic literature being the only one among all the European and Asiatic literatures -
 
- the only one, observe, which does not present any typical pair of lovers -
 
- unless you reckon Vanka - Tanka as such; and of the Holy Russian knight always beginning his acquaintance with his destined bride by beating her ‘most pitilessly’ on her white body, because ‘the race of women is puffed up’! all that I pass over; but I should like to call your attention to the artistic form of the young hero, the
jeune premier,
as he was depicted by the imagination of the primitive, uncivilized Slav. Just fancy him a minute; the
jeune premier
enters; a cloak he has worked himself of sable, back - stitched along every seam, a sash of seven - fold silk girt close about his armpits, his fingers hidden away under his hanging sleevelets, the collar of his coat raised high
 
above his head, from before, his rosy face no man can see, nor, from behind, his little white neck; his cap is on one ear, while on his feet are boots of morocco, with points as sharp as a cobbler’s awl, and the heels peaked like nails. Round the points an egg can he rolled, and a sparrow can fly under the heels. And the young hero advances with that peculiar mincing gait by means of which our Alcibiades, Tchivilo Plenkovitch, produced such a striking, almost medical, effect on old women and young girls, the same gait which we see in our loose - limbed waiters, that cream, that flower of Russian dandyism, that
ne plus ultra
of Russian taste. This I maintain without joking; a sacklike gracefulness, that’s an artistic ideal. What do you think, is it a fine type? Does it present many materials for painting, for sculpture? And the beauty who fascinates the young hero, whose ‘face is as red as the blood of the hare’? . . . But I think you’re not listening to me?”

Litvinov started. He had not, in fact, heard what Potugin was saying; he kept thinking, persistently thinking of Irina, of his last interview with her. . . .

“I beg your pardon, Sozont Ivanitch,” he began, “but I’m going to attack you again with my former question about . . . about Madame Ratmirov.”

Potugin folded up his newspaper and put it in his pocket.

“You want to know again how I came to know her?” “No, not exactly. I should like to hear your opinion . . . on the part she played in Petersburg. What was that part, in reality?”

“I really don’t know what to say to you, Grigory Mihalitch: I was brought into rather intimate terms with Madame Ratmirov . . . but quite accidentally,
 
and not for long. I never got an insight into her world, and what took place in it remained unknown to me. There was some gossip before me, but as you know, it’s not only in democratic circles that slander reigns supreme among us. Besides I was not inquisitive. I see, though,” he added, after a short silence, “she interests you.”

“Yes; we have twice talked together rather openly. I ask myself, though, is she sincere?”

Potugin looked down. “When she is carried away by feeling, she is sincere, like all women of strong passions. Pride too, sometimes prevents her from lying.”

“Is she proud? I should rather have supposed she was capricious.”

“Proud as the devil; but that’s no harm.”

“I fancy she sometimes exaggerates. . . .”

“That’s nothing either, she’s sincere all the same. Though after all, how can you expect truth? The best of those society women are rotten to the marrow of their bones.”

“But, Sozont Ivanitch, if you remember, you called yourself her friend. Didn’t you drag me almost by force to go and see her?”

“What of that? she asked me to get hold of you; and I thought, why not? And I really am her friend. She has her good qualities: she’s very kind, that is to say, generous, that’s to say she gives others what she has no sort of need of herself. But of course you must know her at least as well as I do.”

“I used to know Irina Pavlovna ten years ago; but since then -
 
- “

“Ah, Grigory Mihalitch, why do you say that? Do you suppose any one’s character changes? Such as one is in one’s cradle, such one is still in one’s tomb.
 
Or perhaps it is” (here Potugin bowed his head still lower) “perhaps, you’re afraid of falling into her clutches? that’s certainly . . . But of course one is bound to fall into some woman’s clutches.”

Litvinov gave a constrained laugh. “You think so?”

“There’s no escape. Man is weak, woman is strong, opportunity is all - powerful, to make up one’s mind to a joyless life is hard, to forget one’s self utterly is impossible . . . and on one side is beauty and sympathy and warmth and light, -
 
- how is one to resist it? Why, one runs like a child to its nurse. Ah, well, afterwards to be sure comes cold and darkness and emptiness . . . in due course. And you end by being strange to everything, by losing comprehension of everything. At first you don’t understand how love is possible; afterwards one won’t understand how life is possible.”

Litvinov looked at Potugin, and it struck him that he had never yet met a man more lonely, more desolate . . . more unhappy. This time he was not shy, he was not stiff; downcast and pale, his head on his breast, and his hands on his knees, he sat without moving, merely smiling his dejected smile. Litvinov felt sorry for the poor, embittered, eccentric creature.

“Irina Pavlovna mentioned among other things,” he began in a low voice, “a very intimate friend of hers, whose name if I remember was Byelsky, or Dolsky. . . .”

Potugin raised his mournful eyes and looked at Litvinov.

“Ah!” he commented thickly. . . . “She mentioned well, what of it? It’s time, though,” he added with a rather artificial yawn, “for me to be getting home -
 
- to dinner. Good - by.”
 

He jumped up from the seat and made off quickly before Litvinov had time to utter a word. . . . His compassion gave way to annoyance -
 
- annoyance with himself, be it understood. Want of consideration of any kind was foreign to his nature; he had wished to express his sympathy for Potugin, and it had resulted in something like a clumsy insinuation. With secret dissatisfaction in his heart, he went back to his hotel.

“Rotten to the marrow of her bones,” he thought a little later. . . . “but proud as the devil! She, that woman who is almost on her knees to me, proud? proud and not capricious?”

Litvinov tried to drive Irina’s image out of his head, but he did not succeed. For this very reason he did not think of his betrothed; he felt to - day this haunting image would not give up its place. He made up his mind to await without further anxiety the solution of all this “strange business”; the solution could not be long in coming, and Litvinov had not the slightest doubt it would turn out to be most innocent and natural. So he fancied, but meanwhile he was not only haunted by Irina’s image -
 
- every word she had uttered kept recurring in its turn to his memory.

The waiter brought him a note: it was from the same Irina:

“If you have nothing to do this evening, come to me; I shall not be alone; I shall have guests, and you will get a closer view of our set, our society. I want you very much to see something of them; I fancy they will show themselves in all their brilliance. You ought to know what sort of atmosphere I am breathing. Come; I shall be glad to see you, and you will not be bored. (Irina had spelled the Russian incorrectly here.) Prove to me that our explanation to - day
 
has made any sort of misunderstanding between us impossible for ever. -
 
- Yours devotedly, I.”

Litvinov put on a frock coat and a white tie, and set off to Irina’s. “All this is of no importance,” he repeated mentally on the way, “as for looking at them . . . why shouldn’t I have a look at them? It will be curious.” A few days before, these very people had aroused a different sensation in him; they had aroused his indignation.

He walked with quickened steps, his cap pulled down over his eyes, and a constrained smile on his lips, while Bambaev, sitting before Weber’s café, and pointing him out from a distance to Voroshilov and Pishtchalkin, cried excitedly: “Do you see that man? He’s a stone! he’s a rock! he’s a flint!!!”

XV

LITVINOV found rather many guests at Irina’s. In a corner at a card - table were sitting three of the generals of the picnic: the stout one, the irascible one, and the condescending one. They were playing whist with dummy, and there is no word in the language of man to express the solemnity with which they dealt, took tricks, led clubs and led diamonds . . . there was no doubt about their being statesmen now! These gallant generals left to mere commoners,
aux bourgeois,
the little turns and phrases commonly used during play, and uttered only the most indispensable syllables; the stout general however permitted himself to jerk off between two deals: “
Ce satané as de pique!
” Among the visitors Litvinov recognized ladies who had been present at the picnic; but there were others there also whom he had not seen before. There was one so ancient that it seemed every instant as though she would fall to pieces: she shrugged her bare, gruesome, dingy gray shoulders, and, covering her mouth with her fan, leered languishingly with her absolutely death - like eyes upon Ratmirov; he paid her much attention; she was held in great honor in the highest society, as the last of the Maids of Honor of the Empress Catherine. At the window, dressed like a shepherdess, sat Countess S., “the Queen of the Wasps,” surrounded by young men. Among them the celebrated millionaire and beau Finikov was conspicuous for his supercilious deportment, his absolutely flat skull, and his
 
expression of soulless brutality, worthy of a Khan of Buchania, or a Roman Heliogabalus. Another lady, also a countess, known by the pet name of
Lise,
was talking to a long - haired, fair, and pale spiritualistic medium. Beside them was standing a gentleman, also pale and long - haired, who kept laughing in a meaning way. This gentleman also believed in spiritualism, but added to that an interest in prophecy, and, on the basis of the Apocalypse and the Talmud, was in the habit of foretelling all kinds of marvelous events. Not a single one of these events had come to pass; but he was in no wise disturbed by that fact, and went on prophesying as before. At the piano, the musical genius had installed himself, the rough diamond, who had stirred Potugin to such indignation; he was striking chords with a careless hand,
d’une main distraite,
and kept staring vaguely about him. Irina was sitting on a sofa between Prince Kokó and Madame H., once a celebrated beauty and wit, who had long ago become a repulsive old crone, with the odor of sanctity and evaporated sinfulness about her. On catching sight of Litvinov, Irina blushed and got up, and when he went up to her, she pressed his hand warmly. She was wearing a dress of black crépon, relieved by a few inconspicuous gold ornaments; her shoulders were a dead white, while her face, pale, too, under the momentary flood of crimson overspreading it, was breathing with the triumph of beauty, and not of beauty alone; a hidden, almost ironical happiness was shining in her half - closed eyes, and quivering about her lips and nostrils. . . . Ratmirov approached Litvinov and after exchanging with him his customary civilities, unaccompanied however by his customary playfulness, he presented him to two or three ladies: the ancient ruin, the Queen
 
of the Wasps, Countess Liza . . . they gave him a rather gracious reception. Litvinov did not belong to their set; but he was good - looking, extremely so, indeed, and the expressive features of his youthful face awakened their interest. Only he did not know how to fasten that interest upon himself; he was unaccustomed to society and was conscious of some embarrassment, added to which the stout general stared at him persistently. “Aha! lubberly civilian! free - thinker!” that fixed heavy stare seemed to be saying: “down on your knees to us; crawl to kiss our hands!” Irina came to Litvinov’s aid. She managed so adroitly that he got into a corner near the door, a little behind her. As she addressed him, she had each time to turn round to him, and every time he admired the exquisite curve of her splendid neck, he drank in the subtle fragrance of her hair. An expression of gratitude, deep and calm, never left her face; he could not help seeing that gratitude and nothing else was what those smiles, those glances expressed, and he, too, was all aglow with the same emotion, and he felt shame, and delight and dread at once . . . and at the same time she seemed continually as though she would ask, “Well? what do you think of them?” With special clearness Litvinov heard this unspoken question whenever any one of the party was guilty of some vulgar phrase or act, and that occurred more than once during the evening. Once she did not even conceal her feelings, and laughed aloud.

Countess Liza, a lady of superstitious bent, with an inclination for everything extraordinary, after discoursing to her heart’s content with the spiritualist upon Home, turning tables, self - playing concertinas, and so on, wound up by asking him whether there were animals which could be influenced by mesmerism.
 

“There is one such animal, any way,” Prince Kokó declared from some way off. “You know Melvanovsky, don’t you? They put him to sleep before me, and didn’t he snore, he, he!”

“You are very naughty, mon prince; I am speaking of real animals,
je parle des bêtes.
”

“
Mais moi aussi, madame, je parle d’une bête. . . .
”
“There are such,” put in the spiritualist; “for instance -
 
- crabs; they are very nervous, and are easily thrown into a cataleptic state.”

The countess was astounded. “What? Crabs! Really? Oh, that’s awfully interesting! Now, that I should like to see, M’sieu Luzhin,” she added to a young man with a face as stony as a new doll’s, and a stony collar (he prided himself on the fact that he had bedewed the aforesaid face and collar with the sprays of Niagara and the Nubian Nile, though he remembered nothing of all his travels, and cared for nothing but Russian puns . . .). “M’sieu Luzhin, if you would be so good, do bring us a crab quick.”

M’sieu Luzhin smirked. “Quick must it be, or quickly?” he queried.

The countess did not understand him.
“
Mais oui,
a crab,” she repeated, “
une écrevisse.
”

“Eh? what is it? a crab? a crab?” the Countess S. broke in harshly. The absence of M. Verdier irritated her; she could not imagine why Irina had not invited that most fascinating of Frenchmen. The ancient ruin, who had long since ceased understanding anything -
 
- moreover she was completely deaf -
 
- only shook her head.

“
Oui, oui, vous allez voir.
M’sieu Luzhin, please. . . .”

The young traveler bowed, went out, and returned quickly. A waiter walked behind him, and grinning
 
from ear to ear, carried in a dish, on which a large black crab was to be seen. “
Voici, madame,
” cried Luzhin; “now we can proceed to the operation on cancer. Ha, ha, ha!” (Russians are always the first to laugh at their own witticisms.)

“He, he, he!” Count Kokó did his duty condescendingly as a good patriot, and patron of all national products. (We beg the reader not to be amazed and indignant; who can say confidently for himself that sitting in the stalls of the Alexander Theater, and infected by its atmosphere, he has not applauded even worse puns?)

“
Merci, merci,
” said the countess.
“
Allons, allons, Monsieur Fox, montrez nous ça.
”

The waiter put the dish down on a little round table. There was a slight movement among the guests; several heads were craned forward; only the generals at the card - table preserved the serene solemnity of their pose. The spiritualist ruffled up his hair, frowned, and, approaching the table, began waving his hands in the air; the crab stretched itself, backed, and raised its claws. The spiritualist repeated and quickened his movements; the crab stretched itself as before. “
Mais que doit - elle donc faire?
” inquired the countess.

“
Elle doâ rester immobile et se dresser sur sa quiou,
” replied Mr. Fox, with a strong American accent, and he brandished his fingers with convulsive energy over the dish; but the mesmerism had no effect, the crab continued to move. The spiritualist declared that he was not himself, and retired with an air of displeasure from the table. The countess began to console him, by assuring him that similar failures occurred sometimes
 
even with Mr. Home. . . . Prince Kokó confirmed her words. The authority on the Apocalypse and the Talmud stealthily went up to the table, and making rapid but vigorous thrusts with his fingers in the direction of the crab, he too tried his luck, but without success; no symptom of catalepsy showed itself. Then the waiter was called, and told to take away the crab, which he accordingly did, grinning from ear to ear, as before; he could be heard exploding outside the door.

There was much laughter afterwards in the kitchen
über diese Russen.
The self - taught genius, who had gone on striking notes during the experiments with the crab, dwelling on melancholy chords, on the ground that there was no knowing what influence music might have -
 
- the self - taught genius played his invariable waltz, and, of course, was deemed worthy of the most flattering applause. Pricked on by rivalry, Count H., our incomparable dilettante (see Chapter I), gave a little song of his own composition, cribbed wholesale from Offenbach. Its playful refrain to the words: “
Quel oeuf? quel boeuf?
” set almost all the ladies’ heads swinging to right and to left; one went so far as to hum the tune lightly, and the irrepressible, inevitable word, “
Charmant! charmant!
” was fluttering on every one’s lips. Irina exchanged a glance with Litvinov, and again the same secret, ironical expression quivered about her lips. . . . But a little later it was still more strongly marked, there was even a shade of malice in it, when Prince Kokó, that representative and champion of the interests of the nobility, thought fit to propound his views to the spiritualist, and, of course, gave utterance before long to his famous phrase about the shock to the principle of property, accompanied naturally by an attack on democrats. The spiritualist’s American blood was stirred;
 
he began to argue. The prince, as his habit was, at once fell to shouting at the top of his voice; instead of any kind of argument he repeated incessantly: “
C’est absurde! cela n’a pas le sens commun!
” The millionaire Finikov began saying insulting things, without much heed to whom they referred; the Talmudist’s piping notes and even the Countess S.’s jarring voice could be heard. . . . In fact, almost the same incongruous uproar arose as at Gubaryov’s; the only difference was that here there was no beer nor tobacco - smoke, and every one was better dressed. Ratmirov tried to restore tranquillity (the generals manifested their displeasure, Boris’s exclamation could be heard, “
Encore cette satanée politique!
”), but his efforts were not successful, and at that point, a high official of the stealthily inquisitorial type, who was present, and undertook to present
le résumé en peu de mots,
sustained a defeat: in fact he so hummed and hawed, so repeated himself, and was so obviously incapable of listening to or taking in the answers he received, and so unmistakably failed to perceive himself what precisely constituted
la question
that no other result could possibly have been anticipated. And then, too, Irina was slyly provoking the disputants and setting them against one another, constantly exchanging glances and slight signs with Litvinov as she did so.

But he was sitting like one spellbound, he was hearing nothing, and waiting for nothing but for those splendid eyes to sparkle again, that pale, tender, mischievous, exquisite face to flash upon him again. . . It ended by the ladies growing restive, and requesting that the dispute should cease. . . . Ratmirov entreated the dilettante to sing his song again, and the self - taught genius once more played his waltz. . . .

Litvinov stayed till after midnight, and went away
 
later than all the rest. The conversation had in the course of the evening touched upon a number of subjects, studiously avoiding anything of the faintest interest; the generals, after finishing their solemn game, solemnly joined in it: the influence of these statesmen was at once apparent. The conversation turned upon notorieties of the Parisian demi - monde, with whose names and talents every one seemed intimately acquainted, on Sardou’s latest play, on a novel of About’s, on Patti in the
Traviata.
Some one proposed a game of “secretary,”
au secrétaire;
but it was not a success. The answers given were pointless, and often not free from grammatical mistakes; the stout general related that he had once in answer to the question:
Qu’est - ce que l’amour?
replied,
Une colique remontée au coeur,
and promptly went off into his wooden guffaw; the ancient ruin with a mighty effort struck him with her fan on the arm; a flake of plaster was shaken off her forehead by this rash action. The old crone was beginning a reference to the Slavonic principalities and the necessity of orthodox propaganda on the Danube, but, meeting with no response, she subsided with a hiss. In reality they talked more about Home than anything else; even the “Queen of the Wasps” described how hands had once crept about her, and how she had seen them, and put her own ring on one of them. It was certainly a triumph for Irina: even if Litvinov had paid more attention to what was being said around him, he still could not have gleaned one single sincere saying, one single clever. thought, one single new fact from all their disconnected and lifeless babble. Even in their cries and exclamations, there was no note of real feeling, in their slander no real heat. Only at rare intervals under the mask of assumed patriotic indignation, or of assumed
 
contempt and indifference, the dread of possible losses could be heard in a plaintive whimper, and a few names, which will not be forgotten by posterity, were pronounced with gnashing of teeth. . . . And not a drop of living water under all this noise and wrangle! What stale, what unprofitable nonsense, what wretched trivialities were absorbing all these heads and hearts, and not for that one evening, not in society only, but at home too, every hour and every day, in all the depth and breadth of their existence! And what ignorance, when all is said! What lack of understanding of all on which human life is built, all by which life is made beautiful!