Stories (31 page)

“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 t
he 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 wa
s somehow especially radiant and inspired that day, and that he was very interesting.

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.
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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.”

“That’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 mast
er’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 som
e 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!”

Yegor Semyonych sighed and was silent for a time.

“Maybe it’s egoism, but I’ll tell you frankly: I don’t want Tanya to get married. I’m afraid! There’s a fop with a fiddle who comes here and scrapes away; I know Tanya won’t marry him, I know it
very well, but I hate the sight of him! Generally, my boy, I’m a great eccentric. I admit it.”

Yegor Semyonych got up and paced the room in agitation, and it was evident that he wanted to say something very important, but could not decide to do it.

“I love you dearly and I’ll speak frankly with you,” he finally decided, thrusting his hands into his pockets. “My attitude to certain ticklish questions is simple, I say straight out what I think, and I can’t stand so-called hidden thoughts. I’ll say straight out: you are the only man to whom I would not be afraid to marry my daughter. You’re intelligent, and a man of heart, and you wouldn’t let my beloved work perish. And the main reason is—I love you like a son … and I’m proud of you. If you and Tanya should somehow have a romance, then—why, I’d be very glad and even happy. I say it straight o
ut, without mincing, as an honest man.”

Kovrin laughed. Yegor Semyonych opened the door to go out, but stopped on the threshold.

“If you and Tanya had a son, I’d make a horticulturist of him,” he said, pondering. “However, that is but vain dreaming … Good night.”

Left alone, Kovrin lay down more comfortably and began on the articles. One was entitled “On Intermediate Crops,” another “A Few Words Concerning the Note by Mr. Z. on Tur
ning Over the Soil for a New Garden,” a third “More on Budding with Dormant Eyes,” and the rest were in the same vein. But what an uneasy, uneven tone, what nervous, almost morbid defiance! Here was an article with what one would think was the most peaceable title and indifferent content: the subject was the Russian Antonov apple tree. Yet Yegor Semyonych began it with
audiatur altera pars
and ended with
sapienti sat,
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and between these two pronouncements there was a whole fountain of venomous words of all sorts addressed to “the learned ignorance of our patented Messers the Horticulturists who observe nature from the height of their lecterns,” or to M. Gaucher, “whose success was created by amateurs and dilettantes,” followed by an inappropriately forced and insincere regret that it was no longer possible to give peasants a birching for stealing fruit and breaking the trees while they are at it.

“This is beautiful, sweet, and healthy work, but here, to
o, there are passions and war,” thought Kovrin. “It must be that everywhere
and in all occupations, people with ideas are nervous and marked by high sensitivity. It probably has to be that way”

He thought of Tanya, who loved Yegor Semyonych’s articles so much. Small of stature, pale, so skinny that you could see her collarbones; her eyes wide open, dark, intelligent, always peering somewhere and seeking something; her gait like her father’s— small, hurried steps. She talks a lot, likes to argue, and accompanies every phrase, even the most insignificant, with expressive looks and gestures. She must be nervous in the highest degree.

Kovrin began to read further, but understood nothing and dropped it. The pleasant excitement, the same with which he had danced the mazurka and listened to the music earlier, now oppressed him and evoked a great many thoughts. He got up and began pacing the room, thinking about the black monk. It occurred to him that if he alone had seen this strange, supernatural monk, it me
ant that he was ill and had gone as far as hallucinations. This thought alarmed him, but not for long.

“But I’m quite well, and I do no one any harm, so there’s nothing bad in my hallucination,” he thought and felt good again.

He sat down on the sofa and put his head in his hands, holding back the incomprehensible joy that filled his whole being, then he paced about again and sat down to work. But the thoughts he read in the book did not satisfy him. He wanted something gigantic, boundless, staggering. Towards morning he undressed and reluctantly went to bed: he did have to sleep!

When he heard the footsteps of Yegor Semyonych leaving for the gardens, Kovrin rang the bell and told the servant to bring some wine. He drank several glasses of Lafite with pleasure, then pulled the blanket over his head; his consciousness went dim, and he fell asleep.

Yegor Semyonych and Tanya often quarreled and said unpleasant things to each other.

One morning they had a squabble over something. Tanya began to cry and went to her room. She did not come out for dinner or for tea. Yegor Semyonych first went about all pompous, puffed up, as if wishing to make it known that for him the interests of justice and order were higher than anything in the world, but soon his
character failed him and he lost his spirits. He wandered sadly through the park and kept sighing: “Ah, my God, my God!”—and did not eat a single crumb at dinner. Finally, guilty, suffering remorse, he knocked on the locked door and timidly called:

“Tanya! Tanya!”

And in answer to him a weak voice, exhausted from tears and at the same time resolute, came from behind the door:

“Leave me alone, I beg you.”

The suffering of the masters affected the entire household, even the people who worked in the garden. Kovrin was immersed in his interesting work, but in the end he, too, felt dull and awkward. To disperse the general bad mood somehow, he decided to intervene and before evening knocked on Tanya’s door. He was admitted.

“Aie, aie, what a shame!” he began jokingly, looking in surprise at Tanya’s tear-stained, mournful face, covered with red spots. “Can it be so serious? Aie, aie!”

“But if you only knew how he torments me!” she said, and tears, bitter, abundant tears, poured from her big eyes. “He wears me out!” she went on, wringing her hands. “I didn’t say anything to him … not anything … I just said there was no need to keep … extra workers, if… if it’s possible to hire day laborers whenever we like. The … the workers have already spent a whole week doing nothing … I … I just said it, and he began to shout and said … a lot of insulting … deeply offensive things to me. What for?”

“Come, come,” said Kovrin, straightening her hair. “You’ve quarreled, cried, and enough. You mustn’t be angry for so long, it’s not nice … especially since he loves you no end.”

“He’s ruined my … my whole life,” Tanya went on, sobbing. “All I hear is insults and offense. He considers me useless in his house. So, then? He’s right. I’ll leave here tomorrow, get hired as a telegraph girl… Let him …”

“Well, well, well … Don’t cry, Tanya. Don’t cry, my dear … You’re both hot-tempered, irritable, you’re both to blame. Come, I’ll make peace between you.”

Kovrin spoke tenderly and persuasively, and she went on crying, her shoulders shaking and her hands clenched, as if some terrible misfortune had actually befallen her. He felt the more sorry for her because, though her grief was not serious, she suffered deeply. What trifles sufficed to make this being unhappy for a whole day, and perhaps even all her life! As he comforted Tanya, Kovrin was
thinking that, apart from this girl and her father, there were no people to be found in the whole world who loved him like their own, like family; that if it were not for these two persons,
he, who had lost his father and mother in early childhood, might have died without knowing genuine tenderness and that naïve, unreasoning love which one feels only for very close blood relations. And he felt that the nerves of this crying, shaking girl responded, like iron to a magnet, to his own half-sick, frayed nerves. He never could have loved a healthy, strong, red-cheeked woman, but pale, weak, unhappy Tanya he liked very much.